Who Said It's Fun?

I must have the meanest parents in the world. Look what they make me do. First, I’m stuffed into this bulky one-piece suit with a hood that is uncomfortably fastened under my chin. I feel as though I’m being choked. Do they even know how difficult it is to move in this thing? If that’s not enough, my feet are stuffed into these rubber things they call boots, so they won’t get wet. Come on, people, I just learned how to walk. Now they expect me to wander around on this slippery white stuff without a care in the world and not worry about falling flat on my face. Seriously!

 The wind is starting to pick up. It’s blowing the white stuff—I’m told the proper name is snow—directly into my face, stinging my eyes and making my nose run. Why does my mother keep asking me if I’m having fun? What’s fun about a snotty nose and watery eyes? I guess she’s too old to remember what it was like trying to walk in this stuff at my age. Take two wobbly steps, fall, get picked up and placed back on your feet, two more steps and it’s down again. What did I ever do to them to be treated like this?

It’s dad’s turn to torture me now. He wants me to pick up this snow stuff, push it into a ball and throw it. I don’t get it. To demonstrate what he wants me to do, he scoops up a handful of snow, packs it tight, and throws it at mom. She retaliates and tosses a snowball back at him, causing an outright snow war to erupt. They're laughing and pummeling each other with snow while I’m standing here shivering, face covered with frozen crud.

I’m sure there will come a time in the future when someone will ask me if I like winter. I’ll think back on this day and reply, “Not no, but hell no!”