Snow is deceiving. It likes to play hard-to-get. Like so many other things in life, I have developed a love-hate relationship with the whole idea of snow. The “dog days” of summer reach their finale, the leaves start falling, and everyone excitedly awaits the first snowfall. It’s like we call snow’s cell phone twenty times and it doesn’t pick up. All we want is snow so we can play football at night in the company of the finely manicured lawns of Kansas City Country Club, so we can drive out to the hills at Corporate Woods to go sledding, and most of all, so we can extend our two-day break from school into an extended vacation courtesy of the white stuff.

Then it comes. It’s the moment we’ve all been waiting for. Girls run down in the basement yelling, “No school!” The crowd erupts from the couch, pausing their current viewing of “Click,” and everyone runs upstairs, looking outside at the white beauty stacking up on the ground soon to be joined by the sheet of flakes dancing their way down. The door swings open and everybody begins dancing in the snow as Talib Kweli blasts from my pal’s red Alero. Everything is perfect for the moment. You get to do as you please, and you get to top it off by coming home to a lit fire and a glass of hot cocoa.

Eventually reality sets in. It’s going to be a harsh, brutal winter. Who cares if it snows anymore; of course, it will. For months to come, I am going to be frigid when I wake up in the morning. My nose will be sniffling, and my car will run like an untamed beast. Now when the snow comes, it comes, and it stays on the ground for a time too long to measure. The slush on the ground is putrid, and suddenly I am wishing for the warmth of Playa del Carmen. Playa del Carmen? Ok, I think I can wait for the snow to melt.