In Saint Louis we are in the midst of, what we would consider, a pretty rough winter. It has been bitterly cold the last week, we are getting snowed on and school, even for the kids doing virtual, is getting canceled daily. I know we do not have to deal with what people who live up North have to, or what people in much colder countries do. But, for the time, and place I live, it is very cold and very snowy.

Up above I mentioned how school has been getting canceled a lot lately too. I, like most kids, used to relish this. I would sit at the TV screen the night before it would snow, and just watch and hope that my school would be on there. It didn't usually happen the night before, but after a restless night of sleep, I would wake up in the morning and do the same. Just watch, wait and hope. More times that not, we usually got a day or two called off here and there for snow. It was nice. We would get together, go sledding or play tackle football and just have fun. After we were done outside, we would go into someone's house and have a snack. The snack was usually some nice hot chocolate and sandwiches. After all that playing we needed to fuel up so we could do it again later in the day before it got dark. These were the best. I look back at them fondly.

As an adult this has all changed. I am not a fan of the snow. I feel that it almost ruins my day, and sometimes, my week. I am, as one of the jobs of a stay at home parent, essentially a taxi service. I have to take my kids to school, to their sports, to their friends houses, pretty much everywhere they need to be. I also do all the grocery shopping and any other little errand that needs to be done. This is all by choice. I like being out of my home when possible, so it is nice to have these things to do, even in a pandemic. But when it snows, or gets brutally cold, all these jobs are much more difficult and draining. When the weather is like this, there is no drive to school. That makes the morning feel like forever, and completely slows down my day. It slows down my kids' day too. And because we are living in a pandemic, my kids' do not have the luxury of getting together with their friends. They are lucky to see one kid they know, and that rarely happens. I can take them sledding, but it is in our backyard, or I take my son to a bigger hill, and he sleds solo. The fun of that for him wanes pretty quickly. My kids also are not as into sports as I am. I can ask them to toss a football around in the snow, or play freeze tag or run back and forth, but they simply lose interest way too fast. The only holdover that still works is the hot chocolate and snacks. But now, with my diet, I rarely ever indulge with them. They get to have it, and I just get to have the sense memory. But even worse is the driving and trying to run simple errands in the snow and cold. It is slick, the roads out here take forever to get clean, the stores run out of items because people panic shop. It is all a mess. I also will not go out to run if it is less than 10 degrees outside. That has been the case for four days now. I have had to workout in my home. That is fine, we have a recumbent bike, I have circuit training I can do, I have resistance bands and I can run in place. But man is it so much more boring, and less satisfying. I can ride my bike for an hour, and only burn 400 calories. I have to run in place for an hour just to get in three miles. The resistance bands and circuit training is good, but I move around so much, and make so much noise, my wife cannot hear her meetings. Then we have the aftermath of the snow. It is going to be cold for the rest of today, and most of tomorrow in Saint Louis, then it will start warming up. By the end of the week it will be in the mid to high 30's. That means I can run outside again, but it is going to be an absolute sloppy mess. The snow is going to melt, the roads and sidewalks are going to be like streams, the trails are going to be filled with mud and the snow will turn to dirt and will muck up cars and buses and roads and rivers.

Snow sucks. It is all so not worth it. Sure it looks pretty, my kids get a few days off here and there and they can have their cocoa, but the adults have to deal with the bad part of the snow and cold. My dad was right. He told me when I grew up that I would not like the snow, no matter how much I pushed back. Well, I do not like the snow, and I wish it would come and go quickly. I guess that is a sign of growth and maturity, but man does this weather really bum me out now. At least my kids get to enjoy it.

Ty

Ty is the Pop Culture editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man Podcast.

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