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The Carletonian

The Carletonian

The Carletonian

The joys of spring

<e took you long enough. I’ve been sitting around with all these new flip-flops, only to put my poor toes through about a month of cold and rain. It snowed the first weekend of April. It’s rained every day since. I entertained the idea of getting my winter coat out again from its hiding place in my closet, but I realized that my pride is too great and I huddled under sweatshirts and an umbrella instead. But warmth, you have finally made your appearance. Thank you.

I don’t expect it to last too long, by the way. It never does. Notice that I used the word warmth. That implies some degree of pleasantness, like sunshine is a good thing. Summer in Ohio is about 95 degrees of gray skies and humidity. It makes my elbows sweat and my head hurt. Last summer the air conditioning in my car was broken. I worked about five miles from my house, but with the addition of downtown traffic, it turned into a 15 minute commute. I would spend each second baking in my car, feeling my pseudo-business casual clothing rapidly becoming heaps of sweat. As soon as I’d park my car, I’d dance around in the parking lot for a few minutes to air myself out. I actually kind of hate heat. Extreme heat, that is. It makes me cranky. That’s why I like spring. But spring, which appears to have sprung, will last for about three weeks tops. I am trying my hardest to enjoy it.

My immediate plan of action is to do all sorts of spring activities in as little time as possible. After all, nothing gold can stay. But what is a spring activity? Getting stung by a bee. Having hay fever. Mowing the lawn. The more I think about it, we’ve just turned spring into a time to prepare for the summer.

In the time it’s taken me to type the above, the sunshine outside has already turned gray. My Weatherbug tells me that, despite the high of 80 degrees, we are absolutely most definitely going to receive a thunderstorm today. I don’t think I like that. My polka-dotted umbrella can only take so much force, and a gentle breeze is enough to turn it inside out. Also, I refuse to go back to wearing real shoes now that I’ve made the first step into flip-flop season. Yesterday I got gas while wearing flip-flops. I pumped from an ankle deep puddle. I simply shook off my feet and continued on with my day. I’d prefer wet feet over wet socks, because that is literally the depths of despair for me. Yesterday was also Easter, by the way, and when I walked into my grandma’s house wearing my flip-flops, everyone asked if my feet were cold. I said, “They sure are.” And they were. But there’s no looking back! My toes have been exposed and they’re staying that way.

The five day forecast tells me that we are dropping back into the 50s and then rain, rain, rain for the rest of the week. Does anybody want to go get ice cream?

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