I have never understood why we go to such extreme measures when getting dressed to go out in the snow. I learned my lesson for snow preparation when I was eight when I realized that I got more of a workout dressing for outside than I did walking up the sledding hill. My typical snow outfit was the following: tank top, turtleneck, sweatshirt, tights, jeans, sweatpants, bibbed snow pants, coat, hat, scarf, mittens, two pairs of socks and boots. Sounds pretty simple, right? Wrong. The hour usually went quite differently. “Mom, can I go out and play in the snow?” I would ask. “Sure, but no running in and out,” she said. She always said that. I don’t know why she was so worried about me running in and out. I was positive that the floor needed to be mopped anyway—why not use the snow to get started? “Hey, mom, how ‘bout you come out and play too? PLEASE!” She never played outside, so if she said yes, I would have been shocked. “I can’t, I don’t have any snow pants,” she replied. I knew it. She always had good excuses.
Twenty minutes later I was fully dressed. All I needed were my boots and mittens. Then the drama started. “Mom! I left my mittens at school!” I whined. Mom always had an answer for everything--even though the answers were not always easy to accept. “Too bad,” she said as she dug through the unmatched sock box. “Here, put socks on your hands.” Parents always have a way of humiliating their children, but this was absurd. “Do WHAT!” I cried. “If you want to go out and play, you need to have something on your hands,” she stated. I conceded and begged mom to shove two pairs of socks underneath my coat’s elastic wrists. Five minutes later, I yelled, “Mom! I can’t find my boots!” “They’re by the door,” she called. (All four of us had the same style of boots). I waddled over to the door to find two boots. Each was a different color and size, but they were boots, nonetheless. I tried to bed over to get the mismatched boots and ended up gasping for air in the process.
By the time I finagled my boots onto my feet (which I couldn’t see because of my coat fat-roll), I was out of breath, red in the face, and sweating. What a workout! At the age of eight, I felt as if I had just finished Sweatin’ to the Oldies with Richard Simmons. I clopped out the door and realized that I forgot to go to the bathroom before my grand adventure. I instantly had a dilemma. Do I risk getting scolded by stripping my outerwear in order to relieve myself after mom had just labored over my snow pants clips, makeshift mittens, and mismatched boots? I decided I would just play outside for awhile and hope that mom would forget she told me not to run in and out.
Playing in the snow would be fun--if I could dress normally. I tried to make a snowman, but as I bent over to gather snow, I realized that all my layers caused my arms to be completely parallel to the ground. I looked like a huge teal helicopter. I gave up on the snowman and decided to just go sledding like the rest of the neighborhood. Maybe not. I left my sled at school too. Well, I had been outside for only five minutes so I couldn’t go inside yet . . . my socks weren’t even wet (the ones on my hands). Just then I had a great idea. I decided to make a snow angel. Snow angels are a kid’s favorite thing to do in the snow because it is simple and the snow suit doesn’t get in the way. All I had to do was relax on the freezing ground. I moved my arms and legs and made the best snow angel. Well, I think it was the best anyway. It looked good, but then I tried to get up. Bad idea. Have you ever tried to do a sit-up in a full-body plastic suit? I gave it several valiant tries. The beautiful snow angel was going to be ruined if I didn’t have a flawless exit (never mind the fact that my older brother would make fun of me for getting stuck in my own snow angel--again).
By the time I finally gave up on sitting up (I decided to roll out from my newly made creation), my scarf was wet from my exhalation. The sickening condensation on my face caused me to remember my sock hands. Yes! They were wet! I decided to go inside. Huffing and puffing as I tramped through the snow, I finally understood why my mom didn’t have snow pants.
