Let’s Pray for Summer

I don’t know what this past winter season was like at your house, but here in Colorado we got screwed. It was the most bone-chilling winter I can ever remember. Of course, some of you are probably thinking, “Well yeah, you live in Colorado, dummy.” But wait…for those of you that think we Denverites (Denveronians? Denverolinians?) are used to being cold, think again. You see, here at an altitude of only 5200 feet, we are considered “lowlanders” by our mountain neighbors. And we have this little bump of mountainous terrain that runs down the middle of our state that usually protects us from the worst weather. It’s called the Continental Divide. The rain that falls on the west side of it, runs toward the Pacific Ocean. The rain that falls on the east side of it runs out to somewhere in Kansas, I assume. (I don’t really care what happens to the water after I flush.) And for the most part, the Continental Divide is so high that it detours most of the winter storms that try to darken Denver’s skies.

How high is the Continental Divide? I’m not exactly sure, but I do know that trees are pretty stupid. They spend their whole lives just standing in one spot getting crapped on by birds and waiting to be cut down or burned to death. And even the stupid trees are smart enough not to attempt to grow up there near the top of the Continental Divide. Let’s just say it’s way up there, okay?

So anyway, there’s this mountainous, treeless bump. And every winter those socialist, touchy-feely liberals up in the Pacific Northwest decide they have to share their weather with us, rather than just their coffee beans and ugly sandals. Storm after storm moves over the Rockies all winter long. But the storms hit that bump and they think, “I’m tired and I feel bloated. I think I’ll just sit here for a while and take a dump.” (We call that place Aspen.) By the time the storms decide to move on, they go way, way up in the air (leaving Denver unscathed) until they finally fall back to Earth and begin dumping again somewhere over Nebraska. (Let’s face it, if you decided to live in Nebraska, you were asking for it anyway.) So essentially, we have this big sunny bubble over us here in Denver. People play golf year-round. And the birds sing all the time and everyone smiles. Oh, and did I mention that everyone’s farts smell like lavender?

But this year was different. The cold air wasn’t stopped by the mountains. It settled down here in our part of the world in October and it never went away. We all stared at the bank thermometers and wondered if it was really only 4 degrees at noon. We grumbled and flipped each other off as we drove the icy highways and pushed our grocery carts through the slushy remains of the latest batch of crap that fell from the sky that day. The birds didn’t sing, the people didn’t smile, and everyone’s farts smelled like, well, farts. It was the winter from hell.

But then something happened. The guy on the news announced that spring was here! Sound the trumpets and call the air conditioning repairman, the warm weather was on the way! Oh wait, March is the snowiest month in Colorado you say? So we waited and we grumbled and we trudged through the crap and the muck and we thought, “Hang in there. It’s almost April.” We thought of tulips and outings to the zoo and we marked the days off the calendar one by one until April came! And so did the snow. So we waited and we grumbled and we trudged through the crap and the muck, but we were brave because we knew that it was almost May. We thought of Mother’s Day brunch and Memorial Day picnics. We crossed the days off of the calendar and we held our breaths in anticipation until finally it was May! Sound the trumpets and call the air conditioning repairman for real this time! Oh, wait. Snow in the forecast you say? Really? Really?!

I’m sorry, but this is just not right. I called Pat Robertson. He said God was mad at us for letting women vote. “Christ on a crutch!”, I said as I slammed the phone down. “I knew those dames would screw it up for the rest of us!” God, if you can read this, I promise to start treating women as second-class citizens and I’ll even start watching the 700 Club, if we could just get a little freaking sunshine down here . Is that too much to ask? It’s almost June for Christ sake! Do you hear me up there you fat bastard!? Oh, sorry - I meant, Mr. Fat Bastard. Amen.