December is upon us. The air is brisk, our breath is visible, and the grass is frosted in the mornings. It is time to stand by the window in a sweater and sip coffee while little specks of white dance down to the ground. It is time to watch “Elf” every day for the next four weeks. It is time to stay warm.
But it’s going to get old pretty damn quick. As someone who has lived in the Midwest his entire life, I know the story all too well. Some flurries drop down and everybody loses their minds.
People wear their winter coats and hats and gloves as soon as it drops to 50 degrees (even though at that same temperature in spring, people bust out shorts and flip flops). When the real snow starts coming down, everyone wants to sled, build igloos and have snowball fights. Then, after about two weeks, everyone is sick of the snow.
As a Midwesterner, I know how to survive in the winter. The Midwest has real winters. Are they the most intense winters in the country? Probably not, but they can be fairly severe, which is not good if you’ve never seen snow before. And since it seems like every other person at Mizzou is from Texas, chances are some of your friends and classmates will not know how to handle themselves this winter. If you or a friend of yours is a little worried about surviving the winter, here are some guidelines to help get you through it.
Buy a coat. I mean, a real coat. A fleece from The North Face is not a coat. My actual winter coat could beat that “coat” up. Get something durable; get something made from an animal. And don’t be cheap. It is basically going to be your outfit for the next three months.
Stop wearing TOMS. December is no time for hemp shoes. As soon as you step into anything that remotely resembles snow in those things, they are going to be damp for the rest of the day. Then you are going to get sick, then you are going to miss class, then you are going to fail, then you are going to drop out of the university, then you won’t get a job, then you’ll end up living with your parents forever — all because you didn’t want to spring for winter boots.
Wake up early enough to dig your car out. My friends from south of the Mason-Dixon line didn’t believe me when I said that sometimes cars freeze shut in the winter. That is real. The fear of that happening is a legitimate one. First, you have to knock off all of the snow from around your car, get in, start it, crank up the heat and defrost, then go back out and scrape the ice off of all the windows. The process is time consuming, but you will get better at it. Give yourself enough time in the morning to get it done, though.
Also, if I hear you talk about how pretty the snow is one more time, I am going to punch you. Yeah, it’s nice enough to look at, but you don’t just look at it anymore; you have to live in it. Please share this article with a Texan in need.
