Navigate the Journal

Articles Archive

Journal Main Page

 

Laura Stuff @ LnE

Lance and Eskimo Comix

Inconsistently Detailed Boy Meets World Episode Guide

The Girls' Zone

Rags' Home of Calico and Suffering

 

Go Home

Lance and Eskimo Dot Com

 

Contact Laura

Which is Worse in Weather?: A Winter Whinefest.

          Which is really worse, summer or winter? Being too hot or too cold? It's hard to say. I think in the summer I always think winter is easier and vice versa. It's impossible to tell objectively because there is no way to step back, completely out of the seasonal cycle, and examine it. Even in the fall and spring, I think you're more likely to underestimate the troublesomeness of the season ahead, since it's been a whole year since you experienced it.

          It's winter now, but I'm not necessarily saying that summer is such a great thing. I think maybe I'm just one of those people who is miserable in any but the most temperate of seasons. Extremes of temperature = bad.

          But which is really worse? Let's examine this objectively in Pirates and Ninjas fashion.

Staying In
If you're staying in, both summer and winter are actually fine, since you can have the heat on or air conditioning and be perfectly lovely. (I don't care what the people say, air conditioning is NOT a luxury--it's just as important as heat in the winter. I only have air conditioning in the smallest room in my house, and I never emerge from that room between May and September.) If your air conditioning breaks, you are really, really, really miserable, and there's not much you can do apart from taking lots and lots of cold showers. If your heating breaks, you can bundle up in blankets, but that doesn't help much, and if you fall asleep you could die.
Big Loser: Winter, unless you don't have air conditioning, in which case summer. Because, let's face it, life without air conditioning is worse than dying.

Going Out
There's no question about it, going out in either extreme is beyond awful. But in the winter you have to go out a lot no matter what, and in the summer you don't (because you are a schoolchild). Also, in the summer you can go out at night, and then the weather isn't so bad.
Big Loser: Winter, unless you are a member of America's work force, in which case I guess it's a tie.

Styles of Dress
Summer styles of dress are far superior to winter styles. In the winter you have to deal with bundling up, which weighs you down and makes you feel clunky and trapped. In the summer, you wear very little, thus acheiving both freedom and sexiness. The only difference is that if you are cold, you can put on a sweater and be a little warmer, but if you're hot, there's nothing you can do.
Big Loser: Winter--unsexy, unsexy winter.

Health Concerns
In the winter, you have frostbite, chapped and dry lips and skin. Also I find that in the winter I get scratches and bleed a lot more, which may have to do with the dry skin thing. In the summer, you have sunburn and heatstroke, and that thing where you stand up too fast and then black out, which happens in the winter too, but more so in the summer.
Big Loser: Since I sunburn easily I'm going to have to go with summer. Also in the summer you could get bitten by a jellyfish at the beach, and then you would have to pee on it.

Holidays
Winter got all the best holidays, like Christmas and Kwanzaa. But on the other hand, in the summer you have NO SCHOOL FOR TWO MONTHS!
Big Loser: Well, it depends. I'd say summer if, AND ONLY IF, you (a) work all year round, (b) work only in the summer, (c) live in another country where the school year is different, (d) have a summer term of school, (e) have to work full-time during your summer break, (f) have to spend all summer on lame vacations with you stupid family, or (g) don't have air conditioning.

Weather Anomalies
In the summer, you have lots of thunderstorms, and the occasional wildfire. In the winter, though, you have snow. I mean, come on. I like rain. I like precipitation! Snow is even pretty when it's falling. But something you have to shovel up? And then there's sleet, which is the worst possible thing to fall in (except for a big pile of dung; that would be worse), and ICE, which makes you fall into the sleet. And sometimes it's black ice. EFF THAT.
Big Loser: Winter!

          In conclusion, I think I may hate winter a little more. But that's not to say that summer is not a horrible experience, weather-wise. I think I need to grow up and live in one of those terribly temperate climates, where it's 50-farenheit year-round. You know. One of those.

 

- Laura