It’s cold. Miserably, eternally cold. Sure, Environment Canada will forecast temperatures at or above seasonal norms at the tail end of their 5-day forecast, but it will never actually get that warm. “It will be warm in 5 days.” “Well, what we meant was, it will be warm 5 days from today, not yesterday.” “You know what we said yesterday? Well just push that back one more day.” “5 more days till it’s warm, we really mean it this time.”
Bastards. After 27 straight weeks* of below-average temperatures, tires frozen square in the mornings, frostbite of the lungs should one dare to breath deeply outdoors and waking up in the middle of the night hoping one remembered to plug the car in, you know perfectly well what happens when you stick that little ‘2’ out there as the forecast high for the last day of the forecast. ‘2’, mind you, and not ‘-2’, let alone ‘-20’ which is where we seem to have been stuck for the past 6 months. That little ‘2’ that sparks a tiny flame of hope that the fifth day from today might be that day.
You know, that day. That first glorious day where the sun, shining from an oddly elevated location in the sky warms the air beyond all expectations, eliciting exclamations of joy from passers-by, causing people to pause in surprise as they step outside, looking up at the sky and taking a deep breath instead of scurrying, head down, to the tiny cocoon of warmth in their waiting car. That day when schoolchildren run laughing and screaming through the park and pelting each other with snowballs instead of huddling around the warmth emitted by their Playstations. That day when perfect strangers will greet each other with goofy grins on their faces as they pass by on the sidewalk.
Oh, even after that day it will be cold again. It will snow again. But something will have changed. Those icy tentacles that have snaked their way into your very soul lose their grip. Winter’s illusion of eternity is shattered. Hope is in the air.
But that day will not arrive. Saturday, they said, back on Monday. Then Sunday, and then Monday, and then Tuesday. It’s intentional. I know it’s intentional, because they do this every year. They sit around their demonic little computerized climate model that shows another 9 weeks of miserable, soul-grinding cold and cackle, pointed tails curling with glee, the horns on their foreheads glowing in the warmth wafting off the sulferous lakes of the damned. “Hey,” they’ll say, “it’s almost the end of February. Let’s do that thing where we taunt them with the long term forecast.”
Today is Sunday. It’s 12 degrees C below seasonal norms. Again.
I think I’ll move to Australia.
*May be exaggerated for effect.
