The cold makes us surly. You can’t deny it. Your body’s physical reaction to uncomfortably low temperatures produces a unique kind of grumpiness. It’s in the tightness of your hunched shoulders as you lean into winter’s icy shove. It’s in the shivers that rack your body in wave after wave of penetrating cold, even long after you’ve come in out of the snow. It’s in the cracked, dry skin and split lips that no amount of moisturizer can revive.

And if you’ve been living in the Chippewa Valley this past winter, that grumpiness can become a kind of lifestyle. You roll out of bed all grouchy, and that grouchiness is fortified once you step outside for a frosty slap in the face. Day after day, your outlook on life can harden, like an unopened soda can left in your car overnight. Amid the stone cold wee hours of the night, the frigid pressure builds and builds until ... boom. And your car smalls like Diet Mountain Dew for the rest of the year.

I like winter. I really do. I’m not in any kind of hurry to see our beautiful snow banks melt (unless it’s through some really cool stunt involving a flame thrower). I’ve always accepted and embraced the full winter season, no matter when it decides to end. What’s more, I usually chide (chide, I say!) people who constantly complain about Wisconsin’s cold winter months, as if they were kidnapped and left here against their will by evil little snow goblins. But I gotta admit, more and more, I find myself muttering creative strings of swear words under my breath as I come in out of the cold.   

Clearly, Old Man Winter is pissed at one of us, and all I want to know is ... which one of you jerks is it? Which one of you mischievous pranksters went and got Old Man Winter’s frost encrusted undies in a bunch? Which one of you people ruined it for all of us?

Last year, we had significant snowfall extending into May. This year, we have The Cold. As I type this (on my custom, pewter-plated, laser-monogrammed keyboard), Eau Claire has seen 53 below zero days. Fifty-three. This is the largest pile of frigid days we’ve seen during the three-month period I like to call “December, January, and February” since the winter of 1949-50.

It’s as if a chest freezer stuffed with frozen turkeys fell out of the sky and right onto our heads. Every. Single. Day.

Clearly, Old Man Winter is pissed at one of us, and all I want to know is ... which one of you jerks is it? Which one of you mischievous pranksters went and got Old Man Winter’s frost encrusted undies in a bunch? Which one of you people ruined it for all of us? You owe me a cup of absolutely fantastic hot cocoa, buddy.

Perhaps there’s some kind of evolutionary advantage to being straight up cantankerous during subzero weather. Maybe the quiet, unfocused rage of a too-cold Midwesterner eventually triggers an accelerated calorie burn event, keeping us warmer. It may also cause our bodies to secrete a pheromone which repels wintertime predators known to feast on early humanoids, such as saber-toothed tigers, polar bears, other meaner humanoids, and snowy owls. I’m not really sure as I’ve never studied wintertime predator repulsion pheromones. I suspect that no one has.

Gaping holes in basic biological research aside, there must be some kind of purpose for our glacial crotchetiness.

I have another theory that frozen nose hairs have a tendency to pierce nerve endings within your nostrils connected to the part of your brain responsible for activating INCREDULOUS SCOWLS. But again, beyond the occasional trim, I’m no nose hair expert.

Whatever the reason, it happens. We get irritated. We get disgruntled. We get pissy. And it spreads. Once enough people get good and grumpy, we affect everything. Like a peevish polar vortex, we create a massive weather system of bad vibes and sullen blizzards. Have I used enough metaphors and adjectives yet? (Never!) The point is, everyone’s in a bad mood. So let’s try not to be, OK? That’s easier said than done, but let’s try to not take winter so personally. The cold weather is not out to get you. So bundle up and be polite. Wrap yourself up in kindness like it’s a big cozy snowsuit or some crap like that.

If you can’t embrace winter, you can at least take a deep, chilly breath and know that this is temporary – around here, winter ends. If you’re reading this (and I’m pretty sure you are), there’s a good chance you have somewhere warm to sleep tonight, and that right there is something to celebrate. So throw on a sweater and party. Spring will be here soon enough.