Man's Inexorable Inclination To Mild Discomfort
There are certain aspects of the modern human psyche that are so powerful that, no matter what the circumstances or conscious will, cannot be avoided. Things like slowing down as you pass an accident to see if you can get a glimpse of a severed limb. Or snooping through other people's medicine cabinets. Or autoerotic asphyxiation.

These are things that when detached from the moment, we would all say quite honestly "No no no, not me, I would never" but we all have done. Go on, admit it. I know there's an elaborate harness-truss-noose rig in your closets just like I have in mine. We're all human.

Sometimes the compunction is so strong as to be unavoidable. Whether the desire is implanted by evolutionary biological instinct or by the strong current of culutral habit and suggestion I frankly cannot be bothered to try and answer. That's what God made boring graduate students for.

No, there are some things that are personal and social imperatives that insist on being observed, no matter how uncomfortable, unlikely or humiliating. If they weren't, we would have no reality TV.

Leaving pig-rectum-eating-in-exchange-for-cash-and-fleeting-notoriety aside, one of these undeniable subconscious needs is the association of late-year holidays with snow.

It can't all be the fault of that goddamn White Christmas song. Bing Crosby was good, but he wasn't implant-cultural-suggestion good. That's strictly Madonna level.

But Madonna never sang about Christmas time and snow, unless you count "Holiday", which I don't. As far as I can tell, that song is about jumbly word-association. And ripping off Kool and the Gang's immortal "Celebration".

The point is that even for those of us in the snow-free greater Los Angeles area we have this basic need to see/feel/slip and injure ourselves on snow during this time of year.

Thinking about this rationally, of course, there is no way in hell I should want anything to do with the stuff. There are several perfectly good reasons: 1) it takes roughly an hour to drive to find it up winding mountain roads 2) said trip would have to be undergone with three patience-free children in tow 3) I would have to contend with everyone else in SoCal mindlessly answering the same primal call 4) Did I mention I would have to take my kids? Yes?

Despite all the perfectly good, unerringly logical reasons not to, we made the trek up to the Big Bear area in the San Bernardino mountains on Friday afternoon. We had to get up to 9,000 feet just to find it, but find it we did. And O, what a glorious mud-brown 1" thin layer of wintry goodness it was.

How it works is, you drive up the mountain on blind faith. You keep going until you start noticing any kind of accumulation along the side of the 2-lane highway. There are several "turn-outs" about the width of a car from time to time along side the highway. Adjacent to some of these turnouts are areas to kick around in the snow that are not a) shamefully small or b) overlooking some kind of treacherous precipice promising certain death.

The scarcity of good spots to stop means that every car attempts to stop at the same rare, useful place. There had, at some point, been some actual snow on the ground. But the combination of warm temperatures this past week and the eighty zillion people traipsing about ogling the frozen water in the same confined space really put a damper on my own attempts to traipse and ogle. All we were left with was a thin veneer of off-white pockmarked with a thousand slushy foot-prints.

Luckily my kids are young and unworldly and were impressed anyway.

A couple of further quick points about the experience:

Of all the dozens of people at our spot, we were one of the very few groups actively speaking English. I think I heard snippets of every known human language on the mountain that day. People came from places in other countries where it already snows to drive up my mountains and trample my precious commodity into the ground. Goddamn for'ners.

In a moment of personal humiliation, I was forced to utter the call made by all complete and total dorks when engaged in any kind of physical activity: "My glasses!" The worst part was that it was necessitated during a snowball fight with a 5-year-old. Now that he's in school, it's only a matter of time before he realizes his dad is a complete spaz. Maybe I can save up for the Lasik surgery before then.

We built a snowman that looked exactly like you'd expect a snowman built by Californians to look.

Funniest overheard comment (that I know of... there were probably some foreign-language howlers that I missed) in the near-60 degree weather as the snow melted around us: "If I stand here any longer, I'm going to get frostbite on my toes." I don't know who you are, Lady Who Said This, but I know you're a Californian and I love you for it. But leave the flip-flops at home next time, no?

Last one: snow makes you cold and wet. Good to know for the future.

Next year I'm paying the $50 per head to see the fake snow at Disneyland.



This post on the Narcissus Scale: 9.2


Pops

- posted by Pops @ 9:55 PM