Top 9 Reasons I Hate Spring

9. March 21-ish isn’t the start of Spring. It’s the end of spring.

We as a society have embraced a giant lie. We like to pretend that the spring equinox is the start of spring. This is a fallacy that laughs in the face of astroscience, the universe, and all the laws of physics.

The equinox is the in the of spring. At the best, it’s the middle of spring.

I know.

I’ll give you a few moments to pick your brain matter up off the floor because I blew your damn mind.

There are four days every year that defined our seasons:

• Summer solstice
• Autumnal equinox
• Winter solstice
• Vernal equinox

Our government has conspired with our school, our scientists, and or religious institutions to convince us these dates mark the change of seasons. Nothing could be farther from the truth.

If we define each season by how its weather relates to the Earth’s position relative the sun — and we we do— then we have to assume these four seasonal days are the midpoints of their season, not the beginning.

I blame the solstices for this issue.

Our calendars tell us that winter solstice starts winter. However, the winter solstice is the shortest day of the year. That means every day after the winter solstice is getting longer and warmer.

You know what we call the time a year where days get longer and warmer? Spring.

Not getting off to a great start. Are you, Spring?

Side Note: The above rant still applies to those of you in the Southern Hemisphere, just flip calendar over.

8. My awesome coat is replaced by a mediocre jacket

Speaking of getting warmer, I kind of hate that.

See, I have this awesome, badass coat. It comes down to my calves; fits me in the shoulders; has two breast pockets on the inside; and it looks’s swank.

However, it is also made of wool.

It doesn’t take long for my coat to get hot and sweaty. Sometimes in the middle of winter. I feel like my coat is too heavy.

I’m always sad when I have to put my coat away for the summer. It means I’m switching from awesome-mode to hey-look-at-that-guy-mode.

I didn’t own a lightweight jacket when I moved from Missouri. Don’t need a jacket in Missouri. The weather goes from being 1,000,000 1/2° to arctic Wonderland overnight. This happens right around Halloween.

My first autumn in Montana, I realized that there is a temperature between skin sticking to vinyl and my spirit is coming out his ice. The locals call this jacket weather.

Since I was destitute and mooching off my parents, I couldn’t afford to buy a jacket. So my mom gave me one. It’s a windbreaker with her company logo on it. It’s schwag. It’s nice schwag. But still schwag.

It isn’t cool. Despite what Idiocracy promised us, it has never become cooler corporate logos all over your clothing.

So, come jacket weather, I turn into a giant dork.

My new cardigan has mitigated this somewhat, but, it isn’t waterproof and rain has become an issue.

7. The rain has come, and it knows when I am outdoors

Speaking of rain…

Have you ever noticed the rain seems to know what we’re trying to go for a walk? If there is one thing about spring I enjoy, it is walking outdoors. It hasn’t gotten too high for me yet and it isn’t too cold for me anymore.

I spend 90% of my life in front of some screen. I need to get up and walk around more often. Spring is supposed to be the bastion of renewed hope for me to walk. I’m supposed to be getting healthier and exercising more. I need the fresh air in the sunshine to stave off the dreaded Emo-spiral. Everything about being outdoors in spraying is supposed to be pleasant.

So tell that to the five minutes every goddamned day it rains.

Back home, we have a saying, “if it’s raining. While the sun is shining, it will rain again this time tomorrow.”

I’ve got a new saying now. “If Matt is outside, it’s freaking raining.”

I can’t avoid it. The sun is shining. I walk out the door. I get about halfway through my walk — far enough. I have to push it to get back to a building — and rain.

Every. Freaking. Time.

I don’t know if there is a conspiracy against me or if my breaking the February curse has caused it to mutate into a weird March rain curse, but I will find out. And when I do, the world will pay.

6. Flip-Flops and exposed toes… EVERYWHERE!

Human feet are disgusting. This is not up for debate. I wrote the entire blog post about it last Friday. If you disagree with me, you are wrong and evil.

We know exposing your feet to the world only adds to the level of disease in Missouri for everyone around you.

So, please. I’m begging you. Stop with the flip-flops.

Open-toed shoes are bad enough. I can’t handle your nasty ass feet.

Please. Please. Ple-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-ease!

Wear real shoes.

5. The First Lawn Mow

If there was one thing I could change around the entire planet, it would be lawns. I hate lawn maintenance. I don’t like watering lawns and I don’t like mowing lawns. It’s why I live in an apartment. Lawns and sock and they need to die in a fire — not literally.

Despite my clever decision to live in attached housing, I still have 30 square feet of yard. It isn’t much. I can mow it with a weed-eater and it only takes a few minutes. I shouldn’t complain because my small patch of yard also includes a clothesline. Multiple people in my family are jealous of it.

My biggest problem with my bit of grass is knowing when I’m supposed to cut it. Sure, knee-high is obvious, but, what about the first time of the year?

I live in Montana. It was 60°F today. Sounds like amazing weather, right?

It is. Perfect weather. But, how long will it last? It might be the end of March now, but it is still possible. We end up getting 19 feet of snow. One of these days.

Do I mow my yard now or do I wait until everyone else’s mode? What about all the people who are mowing mud right now? Are they right? How could they possibly be? It is impossible. It is impossible to tell when to mow the yard the first time.

So I’ll just wait until my landlord was his.

4. Everything feels gross, no matter what

I spent 90 minutes cleaning my kitchen. I scrubbed the stove. I washed the top of the thing that has the fan in it above the stove. I even in white down the inside of my sink basin.

I really cleaned my kitchen.

So why does it still feel like it’s a disgusting mess?

I don’t know if it is nature or nurture. Is winter such a disgusting, gummy mess of a season, springs seems so much cleaner by comparison? Or, are we trained to associate spring with cleaning?

Either way, nothing ever feels clean indoors during the spring. This is a shame because the truth is nothing outdoors is clean either.

Little secret, outdoors is where dirt lives.

I could blame my parents on this one, but the truth is they’re both neat freaks. They don’t let little things like “winter” impede scrubbing their entire home from floor to ceiling.

Spring cleaning isn’t an issue for them.

I would blame school, but we never cleaned anything in school until the last week and then we just dumped desks and lockers in the giant trash cans.

I don’t know where I get it. I can’t stand it. By the end of this week, I’ll have worn my hands raw with the amount scrubbing I’ll do just to feel comfortable in my apartment.

And this is coming from someone who once saw fried chicken bones grow fur and gain sentience.

3. New plants to replace the neglected plants from last year

While we’re talking about dirty things that live outside, we should talk about leaving them outside.

Here is a short list of things that do not belong inside the building:

• Animals other than humans and dogs
• Fire of any kind
• Water balloons
• Plants

I said it. Well, I wrote it — but using dictation, so I said it.

Plants are an outdoor treat. Trees are awesome. Grass is nice. Flowers are pretty.

In the ground where they belong.

I don’t need your product firm. I don’t want your tiny palm tree. I feel empathy when you cut off of flowers sexual organs and present them in a vase.

Keep it outdoors.

Plant murderer.

2. The Return of the Squirrel Army

I’m no stranger to the dangers of squirrels. Kansas City as a city is divided into multiple squirrel mafias, paramilitary organizations, and stoner hacky sack circles.

Springfield, Missouri, is my second home. It to had an infestation of squirrels. In the cases Springfield. They were some rare protected squirrel. So a little bastards could gang up on you and there was nothing you could do about it.

But, Midwestern squirrels are smart enough to avoid humans most of the time.

This is not true for the mountain squirrel.

I’ve written before about the fact that my office is surrounded by a small armada of needy squirrels. The well-meaning but ignorant humans of the area leave them food frequently. They no longer have to work to feed themselves.

No, what they do isn’t work. It is combat.

For every squirrel, there are at least three large, angry birds. Not the fun kind, the disease carrying kind.

To claim all the discarded peanuts and leftover French fries, the squirrels must fight off the larger and deadlier birds.

They’ve gotten good at it.

Victory has made them arrogant and dangerous. They are no longer content to wait for humans to deliver food to them. They now seek to steal our resources. They have begun the sending scouts in through Windows and across power lines.

Their early shock troopers knocked out our electricity.

It’s only a matter of time before all is lost. We lack the resources and funding to fight off the squirrel army.

Send help.

1. All the—I’m just going to pretend this is mud

No list of how disgusting and dirty spring is would be complete without talking about mud.

The layers of ice and snow have melted, washing away the top layers of every surface and leaving behind only the accumulated winter grime.

Step in the grass? Mud.

Step onto the sidewalk? Mud.

Develop telekinetic flight abilities? Mud!

Everything is covered in mud.

At least, I will tell myself it’s mud.

Between the squirrels, deer, and hordes of dog owners capable of escaping their homes, we can never know for sure.

It could be anything.

But, I’m sticking with mud. Dirty, damnable mud.

Definitely not squirrel poop.