There's No Day Like A Snow Day

To paraphrase Cyrus the Virus, "my proclivities towards winter are well-known and often lamented facts of blogging lore."

But yesterday was something different.

Yesterday, the heavens poured forth with a frosty melange of winter's finest. Now, normally I detest snow days. Unlike the glory days of my youth, when such a day meant canceled school, now it just means I have to plan an extra hour into my commute, what with the scraping, the brushing, the skidding, and general assholiness of the other drivers on the road.

Not today my friends. Today I woke up to more than six inches. Which is better than the four and a half inches I wake up to every morning. Hey-oh!

After I got back in from scraping off my car, I took my wet shit off. And that's when I decided: I'm not wearing pants for the rest of the day.

There are very few joys in life as simple as not wearing pants at a time when you always have pants on.

At 11:00, I'm usually at my desk, drinking cold coffee in a desperate attempt to stay awake until lunch, as I get bad beat after bad beat in online poker.

Today? I was watching The People's Court on mute, listening to Neil Diamond with my hand down my boxers, deciding which porn site to go to. Just as God intended us to live. It was a regular Garden of Eden.

But sure enough, boredom soon enveloped me. And by boredom, I mean that I had viewed so much porno in such a short period of time that I had to be on some government list somewhere.

What to do? The NBA was almost seven hours away, and they still hadn't plowed by street.

I shuffled downstairs to my kitchen to find something to eat, and there, lit up in a golden halo of light, was a fifth of Gentleman Jack Whiskey.

I don't know if you're familiar with fine bourbons, (if you're not, re-evaluate your life) but Gentleman Jack is among the finest. My friend had given me the bottle the week before for giving him a ride to the airport, and it was time for this bad boy to get drank.

But alas! There were no mixers in the house! Nothing except the remnants of a flat 2-liter of Sierra Mist Cranberry Splash, while still delicious, wouldn't mix well with fine whiskey.

So I had a choice to make. Do I venture out across the icy tundra in search of the glorious mixture of high fructose corn syrup and carbonated water that they call Coca Cola, or do I just sit at home like an asshole and not drink.

If I leave, I have to put on pants, if I stay, I have to remain sober. Not an easy choice, believe you me.

My love of delicious brown liquor eventually won out over my infatuation with pants-lessness. I put on my soggy shit from earlier in the morning, got my down jacket, and prepared to face the elements like the man I've seen so many times in movies and television.

I fortified myself for the difficult journey ahead with several slugs of Gentleman Jack. How ironic, the very whiskey I drank would give me strength to get a mixer so I could drink more of said whiskey. Circle of life.

And it was cold as balls. Face-numbingly cold. And the fact that the wind was howling like a mad bitch didn't help things. I had barely got to the end of my block before my feet were soaked. And I still had another few blocks to go before I got to the gas station.

As I walked across the newly formed Annandale Glacier, the footprints I left behind me would be the only evidence of the pioneer who chose alcohol over warmth. I fully expected to freeze to death, and my frozen corpse would be found at the first thaw, a mere hundred yards from the gas station I so desperately sought.

And still a trudged on, the tears freezing on my face faster than I could cry them. Snot covering my face like Lloyd and Harry in Dumb and Dumber as they entered the town of Aspen.

When I got to the gas station, I entered, and fell to the wet tile floor, kissing it, grateful for the warmth that radiated out of the store's central heating.

"Sir? Are you okay?" The concerned cashier asked.

"I've just been to hell and back shopkeep, and I'm only halfway to my destination," was my reply.

"Uh, aren't you the guy that lives over there?" He then nodded out the window, where my place is fully visible from the gas station.

I quickly composed myself.

"Yeah, but...uh...there's a fence, I had to walk around the block.."

"And that took you what, five minutes?" he asked mockingly.

Searching frantically for a reply that would cork his sass-hole, I replied, "Yeah, well, it took me at least ten, you know, the wind's pretty rough out there."

Just then, as if they were sent to undermine me, a mother and two young children came into the store. The children were begging their mother to be allowed to go back outside and play in the snow.

Little fuckers. I had just been on an epic journey.

I forked over a hard-earned $1.98 for my 2-liter of coke, but the cashier accepted my dignity without offering anything in return. We'll see whose laughing when I lob a molotov fucking cocktail into your precious gas station fuckface.

Once again, I braved the hard, cold, bitter wind in getting back to my warm, safe house. And once again, I saw reltives long dead, who beckoned me into the white light, which promised me nothing but endless, warm sleep. All I wanted to do was curl up in the snow and take an eternal nap, but I soldiered on.

I finally made it home, fingers black with cold, and I immediately relieved myself of my pants. Much better.

I made myself a tall drink, and suddenly, life wasn't so hard.

I amused myself with several cocktails, and then boredom struck again. They had still yet to plow my street, and as much fun as it sounded to try and get out of the snow while heavily buzed, I decided against it.

I moseyed my web browser over to NetFlix, where I decided to take advantage of the "Watch Instantly" feature. Soon, another conundrum presented itself to me.

Do I watch Eraser or Hard Target? Arnold or JCVD? A tale of redemption and the battle against government corruption, or one man's quest against a rich New Orleans man and his love of hunting homeless people?

No one told me life would be this hard.

I chose Eraser, and I soon discovered that with a decision like that, there really is no wrong answer.

And sitting there, watching U.S. Marshall John Kruger dual-wield futuristic rail-guns that fire caseless aluminum rounds at almost the speed of light, with a stout Jack and Coke in hand, I was content. Heaven itself couldn't be more satisfying.

And I wept with joy after John Kruger exacted his revenge by trapping his enemies in a limousine on a railroad track, just like the fairy-tales of my youth.

All in all, a good day to be alive. No work, got drunk, braved the elements.

Just another day with the burden of mankind on my shoulders.