SDMB Snow Haters Club

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

Since the Snow snow SNOW!!! Thread started by Montfort is in praise and anticipation of the fluffy, flurries of misery and prompted by my commiserators and Anya Marie’s clever posting/suggesting of a Club, I thought I’d start this new thread.

Come Dinsdale, UncleBeer, Wring , Hodge, Anya Marie, Jvanhorn, pldennison, msrobyn, Myron Van Horowitzski, dcnewsman, Persephone and Modian and ???..

Bring us your slushy, soggy, iced over, salt-stained, ice-scraper chipped, snow-driven stressed-out commuters and pedestrians yearning for sanity and a green Christmas. Share tales of woe and avoid those oddly-joyous, romping, snowball-throwing-types who enjoy frozen fingers, toeses and noses no matter what the consequences.

Hi, my name is Peta Tzunami, and while I don’t hate the white frozen stuff in and of itself, I detest what happens to people and places when it begins to pile up. Sure, if I lived on a beautiful mountainside beside a lake in a log cabin well-stocked with wood and hot cocoa, far from crazed and panicking drivers, I might cheer it too, but I don’t–so I won’t. Instead, I share my tale of woe…

Words escape me in describing the crawling drive home last evening. Besides I’m starting this in MPSIMS not the Pit so I shouldn’t use that type of language. Suffice it to say I reached the Metro to pick up PLD in tears (not only do most drivers here in the DC-Metro area seem clueless when the white stuff falls, they become the most disrespectful and dangerous idiots I’ve encountered–present company, I’m sure, excluded).

At first I joked to myself while driving that I could think of this as “driving meditation”–like walking mediation in Zen practice only in a car and, of course, concentrating on the road instead of footsteps or breath. After the first 5 to 6 miles took close to an hour, I lost all Zen aspects of my trip. All totalled it took two hours to go 17 miles with the final 1.5 miles of the trip to the Metro taking more than 30 minutes.

Bear in mind, it had stopped snowing by then. There was no snow or ice on the roads anywhere. People were making not just one extra lane using the on- and off-ramps as lanes for passing and nearly missing sideswiping one’s car, they were also being passed in the berm by a second row of cars! Near the end of the trip I didn’t think I was going to be able to get off at my exit for all the people using the berm “lane” (cutting me off) to get to the exit themselves, the selfish b@st@rds.

So upset was I by last night’s trip that I opted to drive to the Metro station this morning and take the trains in to the office–which means a longer commute and catching the office complex shuttlebus, but it also means NOT dealing with those drivers, and I can read and relax on the train.

I’ll stick to snipping out snowflakes from paper in pretty patterns and leave the frozen stuff to others.

Next? Additional Role Call?

2

Last year, we were still living in King George, VA. We had a couple of good snows come thru. Our house sat atop a rather steeply sloped lot facing Rt 3. Due to some strange realignment of nature, when it snowed, our driveway doubled to over 300 feet long and the slope increased to at least 50 degrees. We would shovel for hours and hours - by hand, of course, and the base of the drive was always a mess thanks to the plow drivers, the salt, and the slush that accumulated and froze.
Ask me why I’m living in Florida now… I dare ya!!!

3

I think, however, I am screwed no matter what. I hate snow. really, hate it. it’s cold, it’s wet, you have to move it off from where it lands (unlike rain for example, that has the good sense to run off by itself for the most part). I live in a remote area, with a 150 foot driveway, have already gotten stuck (this am, see the other thread), we’ve had nearly 30 inches of snow in the past 2 weeks. yuck.

however. I also get sun poisoning really easily (like, even up here in the frozen tundra of Mid MI, every spring when it first gets sunny, I have to cover my arms or they get all speckled with hives, on a driving trip to Florida, even though I was inside and/or in a car the whole time, both my arms were covered with hives.

Is there a happy medium??? (I mean other than Jeanne Dixon)

4

Thanks for the invite :smiley:

I’m not a native northerner. I have not had experiences with snow until I moved north a few years ago. When I was a little girl in California, snow was something we had to travel hours to get to. It was fun for a few hours, then it was time to go back to warm, sunny LA.

Now that I’m older, and driving, snow has lost its magic. I will be honest. I’d rather stay home, watching TV and drinking hot beverages than be out in that stuff. I am terrified to drive in it. Last night, I went out for groceries and ended up within inches of hitting a snowbank because the roads were iced over. I routinely miss the street sign at the corner by feet for the same reason.

In February, tho, I’m moving back to Texas, where snow is something that only happens on television and in movies :slight_smile:

Robin

5

I dont mind real snow… I mind that gray sleezy stuff that lies around on the street all winter… I loathe the ice that makes me fall into the busstation instead of going there like a normal human being and I certainly detest frozen shit.

dodgy
who will (according to the oh so trustworthy weather forecast) will have green x mas for the first time in her life

6

This thread has inspired me! I think I’ll go for a little outdoors swim at the association heated pool today, since it promises to be warm and sunny here in Southern California. Maybe a piña colada in the jacuzzi afterwards. :stuck_out_tongue:

7

Funk & Wagnalls, Miriam & Webster, et al, have not yet published words that are capable of describing my contempt for the slippery, cold, white stuff.

8

Count me among those who are snow haters.

Let me rephrase that: I don’t hate snow if I don’t have to drive anywhere in it, don’t have to go out in it for any length of time (5 minutes walk, “Yes, the snow is pretty. I’m going back inside.”), if it doesn’t cause a power outage or otherwise strand me, and if it has the common decency to melt after a day or two.

Here in Central VA we have received very severe storms the past couple of years and I’ve been without power for days on end, trapped at the end of my 1/2 mile driveway (yeah, but the solitude is great in the summer), and, in a word, miserable. Snow - bah!

Give me sunny, 85 degrees, sitting by the pool, with a little puddle of sweat forming in my belly button, and a cold Caribe in my hand. Ah, now that’s living.

9

And you, Arnold, may bite me. Or invite me to So. Cal. for a kabob on the Hibachi.

10

Just thought I’d share the weather forecast for the morning, Melbourne Australia: 40C :slight_smile:

11

Once upon a time,growing up in California, I thought it would be cool to go to a place that had actual seasons.
(As much as I love CA, it doesn’t really have seasons. Anyplace you can wear shorts year-round, if you’re tough,does not have seasons.)
I came to DC. I went to AU. In October 1995, I thought “Oh, cool! It’s snowing! Looks like it’ll stick, too!”
Those of you who snow where I’m going with this will appreciate my horror when I came back from winter break to two and a half feet of the frickin white encrustulated flakey crapulence that is snow.
I speak seven languages and in none of them are there words to describe how much I detest the shit. Snow in the abstract is fine, like last night’s. DC drivers and snow, however, should never mix, like bourbon and Pepto-Bismol. Just like bourbon and Pepto-Bismol, if you put DC drivers and snow together, you know somethin’s coming out and you know it won’t be pretty. The only question is as to where the worst of the damage is.

Snow the second day sucks.
Ice storms suck.
If you think you can’t drive well in snow, take the frickin’ Metro. Carpool. Something. Last year I saw a diplomat from Ghana taking his Lincoln Town car for a spin, literally. He thought it was hilarious. Five minutes later, the three thousand dollars in bodywork to the police car managed to calm his risibility.

I’m moving back to California as soon as I have the dosh to move. There are worse things than having a barbecue in shorts on Christmas day. :slight_smile:

12

Hey UncleBeer check your e-mail! And no, I had not read your post before I sent it. Great minds must think alike.

13

Looks like our numbers are growing.

msrobyn, you’re welcome!

Arnold, save us a seat and a colada!

False_God, your analogy is superb, but it almost made something nasty come outta me. Pepto and bourbon–blech!

To those others who have said it, “Yes, snow is always much prettier from the inside looking out.”

I’m sure there are more Snow-haters lurking. Come out, come out wherever you are!

14

Like plnnr, I don’t mind the stuff providing that I don’t have to interact with it in any way.

Unfortunately, I sometimes don’t have that option. It’s supposed to snow (lower Connecticut valley) tonight. I’m expected to drive over 45 miles to my office tomorrow. If the first person to cheerily greet me, “Looks like we’ll have a white Christmas after all!” doesn’t get a knife in his diaphragm, it will only be because I don’t customarily carry arms at work.

Incidentally, for the “white Christmas” crowd, I would diffidently point out that:
[list=1]
[li]I’m not a Christian[/li][li]Yoshke haNetzor probably wasn’t born on 25 December[/li][li]It doesn’t snow in a typically Palestinian winter, anyway[/li][li]Hi, Opal! (Ha! Bet you thought I forgot!)[/li][/list=1]

15

Why thank you, Peta!

(ahem) My name is Persephone, and I am a snow-hater.

No, wait. That didn’t quite work. Let me try that again.

My name is Persephone, and GD it, I REALLY F****** HATE SNOW.

Yeah! That was better!

Now, snow on Christmas Day, falling in those big, fluffy white flakes that land softly on the windowsill are very pretty. Especially while you’re sipping hot cocoa with marshmallows and watching the kids play with their new stuff from Santa.

Every other day of the year, however, it sucks.

Right now, there’s 30 inches on the ground here. THIRTY MFing inches. And there’s more coming.

I’ve lived in Michigan all my life, and even I am overwhelmed by the amount of snow we’ve got right now. This is just too much.

One more thing: Arnold, you…no, wait. I can’t say that to a mod. So I’ll direct my ire to picmr. Picmr, you suck. :smiley:

16

Yep, count me in too. I hate snow. I’d rather have it 90 degrees and humid every day than to have snow fall from the sky.

I hate to drive in it, look at it, walk in it, hear about it. Melted snow makes my foyer floor dirty. So I have to mop it EVERY DAY unless I want yucky gray marks on my floor. And the worst is when I walk into my house, remove my shoes and then…

d’oh! I’ve stepped into a puddle IN MY OWN HOUSE!!!

Arrrggghhhh!!! I hate snow.

PS. Don’t tell me to wipe my feet. I already do that, but it doesn’t get the snow that’s stuck in the treads of my shoes.

17

I have a simple question:

If you so unequivocably hate snow, why the hell do you live in an area with a high probability of snow?

Just wonderin’… :confused:

18

FTR: you can all get bent.

Snow is a glorious gift from above. You should be thankful you have the opportunity to share in this crystal wonderment!

Ungrateful bastards. :frowning:

19

Me too. Don’t mind snow, if I don’t have to drive in it.

Tuesday’s commute was worse than Monday’s. We could see, which was a blessing, but all we saw were drifts over the driving lane we needed to occupy. Bottomed out twice.

Today (Wednesday) more snow, wind’s picking up. It gets really slippery at stop signs.

There’s no feeling like the one you get when you push gently on your brakes and nothing happens.

The snow removal bill is $120 so far. He charges by the inch. Seems like if I’m gonna pay by the inch, I should be having more fun. :wink:

20

We were clearly misled–we were told that Virginia was in the South. :smiley: