There was a book I liked when I was a kid. It was called Snow, and it was written in a Seuss-like style. As in: I want to know/if you like snow…Do you like it in your face?/Yes, I like it anyplace.
That is not funny. No child likes snow in her face. Why did I like this book?
My kids asked me why I don’t like snow, so I started to think about it. To clarify, I like to look at it. In pictures. Unlike now, when I was a kid, snow provided the good kind of interruption. It just happened, and we played in it. Then, when it was gone, we went back to playing in the dirt and breaking open rocks in the hope that they were geodes.
My kids say, “That was in the olden days, 100 years ago, before Nintendo.” I tell them they are correct.
Except that, even when I was a kid, I hated putting on all the clothes that playing in the snow seemed to require. Among them, the snow pants, which would never stay down inside the boots unless they had those uncomfortable stretchy loops that went under your feet; the gloves, which you couldn’t put on until last because otherwise your hands became useless clubs; the stiff, overstuffed coat, which could hardly be zipped because of the fourteen layers underneath; and the hat, which didn’t stay on anyway. Once I was dressed for the weather, someone would have to drop me flat on my back in the snow, because I couldn’t bend my knees or lower my arms. I could make snow angels, that was all. If I recovered my flexibility, the snow would creep inside my boots, packing my ankles in ice. Ice chunks would stick to my socks and then half-melt, making my legs cold and wet. Fun!
I had a metal saucer-style sled. It did not go fast. I was both afraid of going fast and dying to go fast. I wanted a traditional sled with runners, the kind that you heard about kids getting concussions from. I was the only one I knew with this lame round sled that you’d sit on, and it would merely sink into the snow. And because it was metal, snow would get stuck to it, and you’d have to lift it up and bang the snow off at regular intervals, or the sled would not go anywhere at all. And if you ever did get it going for any distance, it would not go straight, because of its shape, but it would go off on any tangent the ground presented. So while my friends were flying downhill on their streamlined rides, I was spinning off to the side somewhere, as if my sled had seen something interesting under the azaleas.
We still have this sled. I don’t know why. When there’s anything else available, my kids refuse to use it. I can’t blame them; the newfangled lightweight plastic jobs are far faster and more fun. In fact, this is interesting. I found out they still sell this type of sled. And here is a comment from a recent online purchaser: DOES NOT SLIDE ON THE SNOW, SNOW STICKS TO THE METAL AND BOGS THE SLED DOWN. HAVE NOT BEEN HAPPY WITH THIS PURCHASE AT ALL.
So why do we still have this sled in the garage? (See last week’s column about clutter.) Because if I don’t take drastic measures to prevent it, everything that is now in my parents’ attic will end up in my garage. There is never advance warning, either. My parents are very clever this way. They will arrive under some other pretense, and they will bring a box with them. “Oh, here’s some of your stuff; we thought you’d want it.” Now see, I’m living a half-hour from where I grew up. If I wanted that stuff…couldn’t I come and get it myself?? But like I said, they’re clever…
When I was old enough, I was charged with shoveling the snow from the driveway, since, as every parent knows, this is the main advantage of having an adolescent in the house. This is what I call the Pretend Teaching of Responsibility, which ends up being the Actual Teaching of Resentment of Chores. As in, the parent says to herself, "I can’t wait until I have an adolescent here so that I no longer need to rake/shovel/take the trash out, and I can even feel good about it, because he will be learning something: Values!"
The other main advantage of having an adolescent is that he will laugh at your jokes, even though no one else does. This is an improvement over the rest of the communication between the two of you, which will consist of three randomly distributed responses (choose one):
- Whatever;
- Because; and
- [Grunt].
If you’re lucky, this will not include 4. [slamming of door]. To be fair, the adolescent who now lives in my house loves to shovel the driveway. I don’t know why, and I’m not asking. He also knows how to ski and ice skate, through no fault of mine, and will gladly walk into the snow in his stocking feet. Still, I’m sure he’s related to me (see: laughs at my jokes).
In junior high, when I had to walk a mile to school, the snow was more of an event. There was always ice on my route, and I had no idea how to properly traverse it, being from a cold-averse family whose only winter sport was “shoveling the driveway.” So I’d inch along the ice anywhere that I couldn’t avoid it completely. And, at some point, I would fall down. Being an adolescent, I was hideously embarrassed, even if there was no other human for two square miles. Now, if I fall down on the ice, the consequences are not nearly as dire. I will merely break something.
The Adolescent called me at work. “Tonight there will be freezing rain and a half-inch of ice,” he said. “School will be two hours late tomorrow, or they will cancel it. Do I have to do my homework?”
“Yes,” I said. “Because I do not want there to be a half-inch of ice. Therefore, it is not going to happen.”
“Mom, fourteen different weather websites say there will be a half-inch of ice. And, my friend So-and-So says there will be a half-inch of ice. So-and-So is always right about the weather.”
“Do your homework,” I said.
“You are like that over-strict Tiger Mom who makes her kids do their homework if the house is burning down,” he said.
“Okay,” I said. “Now do your homework.”
“Whatever.”
If there is a half-inch of ice on the ground, I will know how to walk on it. But please don’t watch.
If you are a writer or other creative professional interested in office space with the Bethesda Literary Cooperative, please contact Paula Whyman through her website www.paulawhyman.com.
For more from Paula Whyman, see www.paulawhyman.com and her online parody newspaper www.bethesdaworldnews.com.
