The alarm clock next to the bed shatters the morning silence at precisely 7 AM. Smith shuts off the bell and rubs his eyes, eager to glimpse the new day bursting through his window. As he furiously massages his sleepy orbs in a desperate attempt to destroy the surrounding darkness, reality cruelly slaps him in the face–this is December, and the sun never rises before you get to work in the morning. Never ever.

Smith flings the sheets off his waking carcass, stumbles across his bitterly cold bedroom, sprints through a frigid hallway and enters the bathroom, slamming the door behind him. He needn’t have his house so cold in December, but in an attempt to conserve energy and reduce his skyrocketing PUD bill, he has fallen into the habit of shutting off his thermometer every evening. Of course, he spends 25 minutes under the scalding shower water just to warm his flesh in the morning, effectively draining his hot water tank and energy savings simultaneously.

After drinking his obligatory coffee, Smith ventures outdoors for the daily trek to work. Freezing air numbs his hands as he clumsily unlocks the car door and climbs into his Plymouth Icebox. He is wearing his winter coat (which is also his autumn and spring coat–in the summer, he just carries an umbrella). The car doesn’t want to start. Smith cranks it up again. The automobile mocks him with a sputtering cough after several attempts, until it finally capitulates and purrs contentedly. Breathing a sigh of relief, Smith clicks on the heater releasing a polar wind from under the dash across his shivering shins.

Five minutes later, Smith is on the move. The dusky sky has molded into a large, gray blanket, and snowflakes gracefully float from the heavens. A strange nervous tightening envelopes Smith’s chest, anxiety pumps through his bloodstream as he looks into the windows of the other cars on the road and sees the feeling of dread being expressed on the faces of his fellow travelers. The verdict is clear: nobody likes to drive through snow, even tiny bits of snow.

It’s a funny characteristic about Smith and his Pacific Northwest brethren: they truly are afraid of driving in the snow. Oh, give them a car with only one working headlight trying to dash through a twilight thunderstorm under a sunsetting summer sky and they are capable of speeding 100 mph down a crooked country road in an attempt to beat a family curfew, that’s no problem. But hand them the keys to a tank during a mild snowfall and suddenly apparitions of grisly death and high insurance premiums seize their reflexes and render them virtually invalid.

The mere mention of falling snowflakes sends people rushing to their radios for news of road closures, and fifty percent of the workforce instantaneously have alleged problems prohibiting their transportation to anywhere but the liquor stores or McDonalds. The only possible explanation for such crazy behavior is that since the change of rain into snow occurs so infrequently, people interpret the phenomena as a sign from a Higher Being calling for a universal holiday, something like Noah’s flood, or maybe Presidents Day.

We can’t forget about poor Smith. We’ve left him out in the middle of the road in the clutches of a dubious snowstorm. He quickly reduces his speed to 10 miles per hour and finally arrives at work safe–and 30 minutes late. His boss, moronically sympathetic to the plight of his fellow Northwesterner, forgives his tardiness and tells him he can make up the time at the end of the day. Smith is relieved at escaping the rigors of Winter, and plops himself down in his chair to put in his eight hour stint, hiding his feet under his desk while his socks, soaked from a parking lot slush puddle, slowly dry on the space heater in the corner.

Daylight passes quickly in Winter and by the time Smith is ready to go home, darkness has returned. The office building is deserted as Smith lovingly pulls on his dry socks, winter coat, and trudges out to his car, the only vehicle left in the lot. Once again, the car refuses to start, except this time the automobile utters not a peep. Smith counters with some noise of his own–of the four-letter word variety–because it appears he inadvertently left his headlights on all day.

The story should end here with Smith calling for help, for someone to drop everything they are doing and go give him a jump for his battery. But I would be remiss if I didn’t tell the whole story: Smith calls home, but his wife is not there. She has not returned home from her afternoon aerobics class, primarily because she drove her Chrysler LeBaron into an immoveable object after encountering a particularly vicious patch of black ice, incurring no personal injury, but leaving a stop sign in a devastating condition and her large American car in dire need of orthodontic work. Left to his own devices, Smith calls a tow truck for help and contemplates his future and the long string of bad luck that Winter has brought.

But don’t feel too bad for Smith. Spring is only a couple of months away.