20 ways this endless winter sucks — plus two perks

We’ve had the longest winter in Edmonton’s recorded history — 168 days with below-zero temperatures at some point every day.

That streak finally came to an end over the weekend, but Monday’s snow makes me think the only sane response to our cruelest of so-called springs is primal scream therapy.

It’s time to vent all the disappointment and despair.

SO HERE ARE THE 20 WORST THINGS ABOUT WINTER IN APRIL:

1. Citywide blues.

Can an entire city come down with seasonal affective disorder? Who wants to get out of bed each day? If you’re not feeling down by now, someone ought to write a book about your mastery of positive thinking.

2. That horrible wind.

As brutal as it is to look out the window each morning at a new dusting of snow, it’s when the wicked wind bites through your clothes and into your bones that the unfairness of this winter hits home.

3. Pets going crazy.

Our cats have ripped up every chair, rug and couch in the house, but the cold still keeps them indoors.

4. Back-alley ruts.

There are trenches deep in the Atlantic Ocean shallower than the ice ruts in my back alley.

5. Property loss.

How many pairs of mitts and gloves can your child lose this winter? The extended length of the season allows for records every day.

6. Money loss.

A small fortune is being spent at Edmonton car washes, which car wash owners evidently re-invest in seeding the clouds for more snow.

7. Hideous grime.

It’s not just winter, it’s dirty. The snow comes down, but quickly melts into the dirt, covering the city in grime.

8. No winter perks.

We get through winter by celebrating Christmas, engaging in outdoor sports and with carefully timed winter getaways, but all these clever perks were used up weeks ago.

9. The cough that won’t go away. The congestion still locked in your chest won’t go away, but is ignited every time you go out into the dry cold.

10. No golf.

The Masters golf tournament ended 10 days ago, whetting the appetite of every local golfer, but there’s still no golfing here, just fields of snow.

11. Hat head pandemic.

An extra month of hat hair is a bad look for any group of people.

12. No Oilers.

Through the dark of winter, we had the Oilers to keep us humming, but the regular season is over, so we don’t even have new games to break up our housebound boredom.

13. Negative stereotypes.

If there’s one thing we don’t need, it’s driving home the stereotype that we’ve got nothing but winter here, even if that’s the plain fact right now.

14. Our poor shoes. They’re soaked each day with sand, salt and liquid calcium chloride, the mixture the city uses to de-ice our streets and walkways. If your shoes survive the season, count it as a small miracle.

15. Under-dressing/overdressing. You go out in the frozen morning and regret you forgot your tuque and an extra layer. But as you trudge through puddles when you head out for lunch, you wish you’d had on gum boots.

16. Falls.

The snow comes, turns into puddles, then freezes at night into ice, leading to falls for even the most sure-footed pedestrian.

17. Weight gain.

How much extra pie, cake, hot chocolate, mac and cheese, pizza and chicken strips have we consumed in the last months as a consolation for our downcast mood? About five pounds per adult Edmontonian, I estimate.

18. Extra labour.

I’ve gone from shovelling snow, to hacking through icy windrows to drain water from swamped sidewalks, to pushing massive piles of slush. Yet still my walks remain hazardous and the labour unending.

19. Undone work.

There’s no shortage of work to do in my yard and garage when it comes to cleaning up after another winter, but it’s no use and no fun heading out into a blizzard to do that work.

20. Endless complaints. Many folks hate it when others complain about the weather. In that regard, this must be the most upsetting few weeks they’ve yet experienced.

And the two great things? First, the warmth of the sun and the light late in the evening proclaim that there’s no stopping spring, no matter how fiercely winter has held out.

Second, there’s been a coming together in our misery and a great deal of humour to get us through the days, including my favourite tweet from Harmony (Twitter.com/Coffee_Baileys), who put up a photo of the frozen street from her drive home and said:

“It’s so cute that most of you think it’s April, when it’s really the 105th of January.”