The World According to Dave
Despite growing up in New England, I hate winter. Or rather, I despise snow. I don’t ski, I have no interest in making snowballs, and unlike my wife, I don’t even find beauty in pristine, powdered landscapes. The moment I see a single flake floating down, I groan in disgust.
Before we moved out to the suburbs, for almost 10 years I had to deal with the urban warfare that is winter parking. In Boston, they plow one side of each road anytime it snows, which effectively eliminates half of the available parking spots on side streets, which are scarce to begin with. And to ensure vehicles aren’t left in one spot all winter, by law, cars have to be moved within 48 hours or else the city will tow it. The result: an all-out battle for places to park. You have to shovel out your car in order to move it, leaving behind a roofless igloo that the car formerly resided in because you’re not allowed to displace snow onto the sidewalks. And what happens next is the locals peering out from behind curtains sneak out and plant beach chairs and orange cones in these roofless igloos to mark the territory as their own. Never mind the fact that they don’t own the spot, let alone the fact that you were the one to shovel out that particular spot in the first place—if it’s in front of their home, they claim ownership of it.
It’s a rite of passage for newbies to foolishly move a beach chair and park in one of these spots. I made the grievous error my first winter in Boston and the next morning found my radio antennae broken off and a handwritten note tucked under the windshield wipers cursing me out (somehow written in a Boston accent) for taking their spot. Basically, you’re screwed if you try to find parking after sunset, and you end up roaming the slushy streets for half an hour, passing dozens of rusty beach chairs obnoxiously planted in empty spots, before parking a mile away from your abode.
For this reason, I loathe all things winter.
I realized this the other day when I saw on the news that a huge snowstorm was descending upon us. I glared at my wife as she clapped like a child.
“I hate winter,” I grumbled.
But the next morning when I saw that a blanket of snow had fallen, it dawned on me that I didn’t have to shovel my car out or even worry about parking, given that we now have our own driveway. I explained this to my wife.
“Do you realize you have this epiphany every time it snows?” she asked. “We’ve been living here for two years now.”
“I keep forgetting,” I said, staring out at the backyard. “Let’s go make a snowman!”
We donned our boots and trudged out into the snow. It was beautiful, indeed. Then we turned the corner and saw that a large branch had fallen onto my windshield, spiderwebbing the glass. My wife winced.
“Okay, so now you’re back to hating winter, aren’t you?” she asked.
“No,” I admitted, sighing. “But I do wish we had a garage.”
—David Yoo
