So, if you are blind, lack the ability to sense heat, haven't had an offhand conversation with someone in line in the Rez and have somehow found a Braille copy of the Daily and are feeling your fingers across this column (honest question: Is that still called reading?), well, I have a little news flash for you. In words I imagine screamed out by Chris Farley in "Tommy Boy" (1995), there is a S--- TON OF SNOW! Yes, breaking news. IT'S EVERYWHERE! And, like the Persians in "300" (2006) or that lead guy in "Grandma's Boy" (2006), it just keeps coming!
Well, I finally made up my mind today: Snow sucks. Maybe sometimes in small doses it doesn't suck quite so much, but, in general, and especially by February, it sucks a lot. I know right now you are thinking two things: 1) "Why, Steve, does snow suck so much?" and 2) "What's the record for number of times "suck" has been used in an article in the Daily?" As for #2, as far as I can tell, the record is three. We're at five, and counting. As for #1…
• It gets on your pant legs when you are walking around, then melts once you get indoors and your socks are wet all day.
• It's another reason for the City of Medford to ticket/tow my car.
• It brings out the worst in two types of Tufts students: the clowns from LA who have never seen snow and go off like five-year-olds on a Halloween candy binge every time it snows, and the clowns from the northern Midwest who feel real at home and want to keep reminding us that this is nothing compared to back in Minner-soda. Both types suck.
• It melts and drips through my ceiling into my stairwell, and my landlord decides not to bother with it until the spring when all the snow has melted through our roof — another reason why both snow and our house, 9 Fairmount, suck.
• There's not enough sunlight for my plant to grow. Yes. I have a plant. It's an amaryllis. It's going to have a bright red, trumpet-like flower when it blooms, but right now there's no sunlight to help it grow, because it is always effin' snowing!
• Then, when there is sun, the light bounces off the snow and I stumble around campus squinting like Clint Eastwood in every movie, ever.
• It's much more conspicuous when our house loses running water and we have to go outside to piss. No, we don't have a dog. (Reason #276 why 9 Fairmount sucks.)
• It turns into sneaky puddles at crosswalks that look like solid ground but are actually just-above-freezing water.
• Shoveling sucks.
• Our neighbor yells at us for putting our trash cans in the only opening in the snow drift, a place he likes to call "his driveway." What? Is the mouth of your driveway not a good place for our garbage?
• The song "Let It Snow" inevitably pops into my head and stays there all day. If you know me, you know my feelings on holiday music. It sucks. Ergo, snow sucks.
• And finally, when I bury the cash from my lucrative black-market Four Loko trade in my backyard, it is very obvious where the holes are.
There you go. A baker's dozen reasons for why snow sucks. Disagree? I don't care. Go back home to LA or Minnesota. It sucks. End of story. And for those of you counting at home, the new record is 13.
