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Contrary to what Global Warming “experts” and the “weather” would have you believe, winter is on its way, and that means Ben’s favorite season.

Personally, I love the wintertime. My body is bundled up so much that women can’t tell I have a pear-shaped torso, and the only thing they have to judge me by is my beautiful face and amazing personality. Also, the gas that I often pass on the sly is muffled and contained by the two pairs of pants I traditionally wear. In short, winter turns me into a real lady-killer, wink.

I also just love the cold and its effects on my everyday life. All the muscular guys have to put away their bulging, hairless muscles for fear of good old Jack Frost, and that evens the playing field. The piercing wind bites into your skin and gives your cheeks a healthy ruddy hue. And, if you are outside long enough your body just turns into one big Goosebump.

Quick, think of winter. Now think of an animal. Was it a bear? (If it was, and you are a woman, call me x4143.) Bears are by far the coolest animals ever, and they don’t even interact with winter, they sleep through it like it’s an economics class. What if you had a pet bear? Just think about it. Winter is awesome.

Of course, we all have different opinions on winter, and these can be heavily influenced by where we are from. I come from a magical land called Portland, Oregon (pronounced like, “you can have a rifle, or a gun”) where, in a Brigadoon-esque way, it only snows once every hundred years. Snow for me has become a near-divine substance roughly equal to whatever God is made out of. In Portland, winter is a grey time. The colors from the trees have all run away, and even the stuttering neon lights of the local bowling alley seem to be gray. It’s like living in a black and white movie. In addition to the lack of color, there is a ubiquitous drizzle that coats everything. It becomes hard to tell if it’s raining or you are just weeping softly as you shuffle down the street while the colors are bled from your body by the oppressive atmosphere. But snow! Ah, snow! When Winter decides to bear her voluminous bosom and grace the streets of Portland with a few flakes of snow, the smiles return. No one knows how to drive safely in the snow, so the whole city shuts down. And if it snows for more than 20 minutes, there’s a good possibility it’ll be a snow day. It’s lovely.

This leads me, unfortunately, to the depressing part of winter – being somewhere where snow is expected, like the Midwest. As soon as the first flakes brush the surface of the earth, the snowplows are out and about, performing their fiendish business of keeping things running smoothly. I think the invention of the snowplow is the worst thing to happen to mankind since Twitter. Besides burying the occasional hobo and allowing people who hate their jobs to get there faster on days that they’d rather not be there, and disappointing multitudes of snow-hungry children, what have they done? What good has a snowplow ever accomplished? Winter should drive life into the past. We should be living like the Donner Party when it snows. Will you get eaten to feed a friend? Who knows? If you can’t ask yourself that question you aren’t truly living. What other season can turn a perfectly normal person into a cannibal? Don’t think too hard, the answer is none. Hard times bring people together. Living through a hard winter is a special experience, though you may not think it’s all that special while it’s happening, like childbirth.

Test Question – which of these three things do kids get the most excited about: Summer break, snow days, or tragic accidents? If you answered the third one, you need to get in touch with your inner child again. If you answered the first one, I see your point, but you are wrong. Summer is a predictable thing. We all know it’s coming. It casts a shadow over our whole school year. Summer can be the equivalent of Christmas… for all of 72 hours. Then summer numbness sets in, and we end up watching over 300 hours of daytime television while complaining about having nothing to do. A snow day is unexpected, like 66% of babies according to Moral Reasoning. It is short, and to the point. A snow day says, “You don’t know how long I’m going to last so make the most of it, and go wild, my friend!” We know exactly how long summer is, and we pace ourselves in our fun, and thereby waste almost all of it. An unexpected, but utilized day or two off from school is better than a three-month break you were expecting. Snow days are the best Christmas present money can’t buy.

So here’s a final message to all of you winter-lovers out there: destroy your local snowplow. You won’t regret it… until you need groceries. Ben Frederick out.