I hate February.
February is a spavined, sinister, slimy, soul-sucking, slug of a month. It lacks even the decency to be a full month of 30 or 31 days; although it was supposedly created to help balance the year, I know it was really made short because it’s February.
February is a month of a million miseries, a veritable Slough of Despond from which the intrepid Christian can never be rescued, despite the best efforts of Brother Help. If you don’t get the reference, then you obviously have books left over to read during this dreadful month, and haven’t yet worked your way up or down to Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress. Indeed, February is similar to Bunyan’s allegorical work, except for the fact that in the end of the book, Christian wins. Nobody wins against February.
February, I despise you.
We had a little snowstorm the other day; it began on Jan. 31, and started as a beautiful blizzard by Southern standards. By Sunday — the first of February—some of the snow had already melted and turned to ice. By the time some of you read this, the ice may have vanished, only to be replaced by a desultory, depressing, dysphoria of rain that’s too cold to be rain, but not cold enough or decent enough to be snow or even sleet.
February, be gone.
The ice and snow made working from home the better choice than driving to the office the other day. I actually enjoyed working from home during the pandemic. I still dressed for work, but I had a pleasant home office with springtime sunshine, lovely breezes, a dog snoring loudly at my feet, and my bride bringing me lunch, coffee and snacks.
Working from home during the ice storm, however, is a chaotic cacophonous crazed circus of cabin-fevered dogs barking at deer foraging in the yard, buzzards hopefully circling the house, cold wet feet in cold wet boots shoved toward a small heater, intermittent Internet, several shirts under a thick sweater, and my bride considering how much trouble it would be to get my body onto the yard cart and across the woods where the aforementioned buzzards could find it.
In other words, working from home during February is like, well, February.
February is a sheet of ice on a curvy road where you have just gotten up to the speed limit heading straight into the sunset, and you have the slightest amount of hope you’ll make it to the store before it closes.
February is mud. Not the healthy, rich, primordial mud of a swampy river in June, or even the fertile mud of a horse pasture. No; February is stinking, cold, staining mud that adheres long after the spring, and spews discolored pollutants from deep underground, contaminants rejected by the Quality Control Department in the very hell from which February sprang in the first case.
I loathe February.
February is a bent, badgering, belittling, repugnant, repulsive, revolting, toothless, troublemaking, temperamental, malignant, malicious, malingering, odoriferous, overwhelming, onerous, irritating, infectious, irascible leech of a month. February is awful, and causes outrageous use of awkward alliteration.
It even has its roots in the Greek word Febreros, which means misery and fear. Well, I may have made that part up, but still, it’s February.
February is the cousin nobody likes who shows up at every family gathering mooching cigarettes and gas money, piling up three to-go plates, bragging about his disability claim, and hitting on the prettier underage female cousins hoping to recruit a new baby mama. He drives a rusted Dodge truck with no exhaust or insurance, a three-year-expired plate, and cheap beer cans rattling around in the back. February is very similar to August in that regard; in fact, I am positive they are kin, from the side of the family no one talks about.
February, oh February, how do I hate thee? Let me count the ways.
The fish are still hiding. The fur is no good. The small game species that I still hunt are beginning to breed or nest, so, no responsible hunter will pursue them very aggressively. Deer and bear seasons are a fond memory, and while there are still hogs, sus scrofa has long since abandoned the easy corn piles of deer season for the deep swamps, and the hounds are tired.
February, you are foul. You are conniving. You thrive on the discord of humans kept housebound for too long, unable to enjoy even a walk down the lane because you are bitterly cold and hateful as a spare mother-in-law. You are indigestion combined with a headache, and have the integrity of a discount gas station burrito from the wrong side of town.
You begin with a day dedicated to a groundhog, a lowly whistle-pig tasked with predicting whether there will be an early spring or a long winter. Sadly, there are still four weeks of February, regardless of the groundhog’s forecast. The average possum understands the futility either way, and if asked for a seasonal prognostication, said possum would likely just play dead, maybe until spring. I envy said possums for that ability.
But eventually, February will dwindle and die. The daffodils will spring forth, those welcome first scouts of spring. Our resident possum will waddle along, her pouch filled with babies. Roxanne the Vixen will finally succumb †o Rocky’s charms, and one of the old fox dens along the railroad cut will again be filled with kits. Our resident songbirds will return to their intricate sculptures in the white oaks and gun trees, only to be roundly cursed by the mama squirrels. The rabbits will dance in the moonlight, and we’ll know Annie is giving birth to a new baby goat because she’ll finally quit complaining.
March with all its fickle flirtation will arrive, bringing the occasional cold rain and tornado, followed by a sun so bright and warm one can understand why our pagan ancestors worshipped Ol’ Sol.
There are a scant few good things about February — birthdays of a number of folks close to me, Valentine’s Day, but not much else. There’s also the anniversary of the day I lost my job and girlfriend, and wrecked my truck twice, all before lunch.
Yes, we will soon see the start of spring, but first we have to survive four eternally miserable weeks of February.
And I hate February.
