Give me strength. Everyone knows Christmas is the time you put on a polyester Santa Suit and sweat in places you didn’t even realise existed. That is the natural order of things.
I’ve seen all the arguments for winter, so don’t get it started. “It’s beautiful.” Is it? Everyone’s depressed, dumping supermarket trolleys miles from the trolley bay and running to their cars with jackets held over their heads to escape the rain. They look like pursued pūkeko. It’s not a good time.
Winter is also the interminable season when people complain about the cost of tomatoes, broccoli and courgettes. Let me save you the trouble next June: they’re out of season. This happens every year. When will you people learn?
People also say winter is great because you can curl up at home, snuggled up with a book and hot chocolate. As an introvert, I am partial to this argument except that you have no choice in winter but to do this. It’s miserable. In summer you can curl up - in shorts. It’s a libertarian’s dream.
Indeed, if you so wish you can ‘curl up’ outside. Imagine that! What a dynamic season. Also, there’s no moratorium on hot drinks in summer. You can drink what you like. You can’t have a pina colada in winter though, can you? No, it would obscene, and would only serve to exacerbate the cruellest aspect of winter: the cold.
I’ve seen people say it’s easier to warm up in winter than it is to cool down in summer. Balderdash.
There’s a book somewhere where the opening line is something like: “It is a truth universally acknowledged that it’s better to be sweaty than shivering”, so it must be true.
If you can drag yourself out of your warm bed in some wretched day in July, you are met - carpeted or not - with a freezing floor for your iceblock feet. They immediately wither with frostbite.
You hurriedly wrap yourself in 16 layers, yank the shower faucet to capital H - Hot, and - the indignity of it all - disrobe, clutching every limb and appendage as close to your body as possible while you wait the three hours for the water to melt in your hot water cylinder. You get into the shower only to rotate yourself under that stream of water 36 times, like a goosepimpled Christmas rotisserie chicken. To an alien observer, it would look like some kind of ritual sacrifice, because that’s exactly what it is.
Summertime - a bit hot? Chuck the cold shower on, dance naked in your bathroom briefly because it’s summer and how bloody brilliant is that, get that burst of cold water in your hair and on your skin, lovely. In and out in five, refreshed. Happy days.
I realise there are two other seasons.
The only thing spring is good for is bursting wildflowers and wee lambs while on a drive on the open road. I have to take six antihistamines a day just to stop sneezing a new pattern on the front of my shirt. Spring is cancelled.
Autumn is a little wistful which my (allegedly) dramatic soul is partial to but crunchy leaves are just not enough. Increase the temperature, make it summer, and you’ve got a deal.
- Felix Desmarais is a journalist and mostly-former stand-up comedian.
