Kaback: Giving up on winter

Winter sucks.

Yes, I know I sound like Captain Obvious — hey, that should have been my Halloween costume…. Winter sucks.

Yes, I know I sound like Captain Obvious — hey, that should have been my Halloween costume. But I really mean it. Seriously, I’m the guy who enjoys having to read Greek classics and thinks meter maids aren’t that bad. If I think it’s awful, it most certainly is awful.

I’m from Ohio — please direct your boos at this time. That’s right, I grew up skiing on Lake Erie and rooting for sports teams that never quite came through. You see, the Rust Belt does a funny thing to you when you’ve lived there all your life. No, it doesn’t move its manufacturing jobs to China because of unionized labor — it makes you think winter is normal.

Growing up, we only had two seasons: Winter and four weeks of construction. The thing is, you don’t really notice this when it’s all you’ve ever known. When I refused to sit outside at a restaurant because the 75 degree July heat was too much, I thought I was normal. When I waited for the late-running bus in negative-degree weather because the driver couldn’t go more than five miles per hour through the snow, I thought I was normal. When I saw the movie “The Day After Tomorrow,” I thought the premise was realistic.

I suppose I’ve been cold for as long as I can remember — I honestly didn’t know that there was any other way to live. Yes, I’d seen movies make the outdoors look pleasurable, but those were as odd to me as “Avatar.” My childhood consisted of homemade insulation and blanket after blanket piled on my bed.

I wish that I could say I at least took family vacations to escape. But although I went to Disney World once, I was too buzzed off my Mickey Mouse sighting to notice the warm weather. Besides this, we traveled to upstate New York to go skiing. The rest of my vacations were to mountains in Colorado and harbors in Boston. I might as well have never seen a palm tree.

Yet as much as I might upset fans of snowflakes and hot chocolate, I can’t continue this lifestyle. My name is Andrew Kaback, and I’m a recovering winterholic.

I came to this realization about a month ago, when an unseasonably cold gust of wind made me a little uncomfortable. As I walked down the street, I noticed that most people were fleeing to their houses like the terror threat level had been raised to Roy G. Biv. In that moment, I thought to myself: That’s interesting — just another day in the life for this guy. But the further that I walked down my street, the more desolate it became. What was everybody going inside for?

Suddenly, in a moment of clarity, I realized that it didn’t have to be this way — I did’t have to be cold all the time. There’s even something that they’ve developed that can take away the shivers and shakes during my transition: It’s called heating, and it’s some really revolutionary stuff.

People keep asking if I’ll ever hit the slopes again. Can I do it casually and just drop in for Hanukkah? Unfortunately, I think I’m going to have to get off it for life. No more snowflakes or Jack Frost for me. It’s going to be tough — no matter how many sandy beaches I lounge on, I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to forget my past —  but my body just can’t take the beating anymore.

Luckily, winterholics are never alone in this battle — I’m talking to you, Buffalo residents — and thus, there is hope for the future. Now I know what you’re thinking, and no, we can’t build industrial plants to accelerate global warming. It’s not an environmental thing, we already tried that and they left us.

But please, if you’ve been on the same path as me, buy a space heater. It might be weird at first, but I promise that it will make your wildest dreams come true. Look up property in Florida. Hey, it’s really cheap right now. Finally, leave your past behind you. Once you go heat, you never like sleet.

Unfortunately for all of us, Pittsburgh doesn’t want to accommodate my grand plan. According to most weathermen, winter will happen. It might just be the most depressing blow to this recovering winterholic’s life. Who knows if we can recover? The only thing we do know: Winter is going to suck!