February sucks...

I'm not kidding. I don't like february. I have a plethora of reasons as to why I don't like this particular month, and if you will permite me (as if you could stop me) I'll gladly share them with you know.
First, the month just sounds stupid. No one pronounces it correctly, including myself. We all go around saying its "febuary," when it's actually "febRUary." No one has enough respect for this particular month to even pronounce is correctly. Personally I'm glad we don't. I've tried to pronouce it correctly and it just makes you sound like you have a studdering version of terets. Which in it's own way would be alittle fun if it wern't so horrible.
Second, it’s cold, dreary, gray, windy, and completely unpleasant…All – The – Time. Even January has a few days when the sun’s out, and it feels half warm. At least in January it snows. In February it seems like the abominable snowman, from here forward to be know as the Yeti, knocked you down and took a big gray dump on your face. Interestingly enough the Yeti enjoys this; it’s almost a sport to him. A big beast covered with fur, sounds like Surfer Curt. In any case, February is just an unpleasant that lacks, decent weather. If it snowed through February things would be different, you could ski or snowboard, you could work on doing donuts in the church parking lot, you could spend more time pegging people with snowballs. Anything, other than stare at the cold, gray, useless dead ground around you.
Third, as if to add insult to injury some idiot placed Valentine’s Day, from here forward known as V.D., right smack dab in the middle of this crap bucket of a month. V.D., as every civilized person knows, is no more than an excuse to remind people not unlike myself that we’ve got something we really don’t want. Now let me make it perfectly clear, I enjoy being single, I just don’t want to be reminded of it every year in the middle of the dead of winter when everything looks dead. The symbolism is truly perfect. For those of you planning to share your V.D. this year with someone else, please, for everyone sake, give him or her the chance to refuse. The only thing worse than having to endure V.D. alone is having it forced on you by a well-meaning friend. I am thankful that I will not be at IWU this year. It always seemed to me that V.D. was a mandatory thing, and that it started to spread through campus a month before, infecting us with an itch to find that special someone to share V.D. with. Let’s face it; there really isn’t anything good about V.D.
Finally, of all the reasons I dislike the month of February my greatest reason steams from my heritage. I’m not quiet about being from Pennsylvania; it’s part of my introduction. It truly is the one of the greatest places on Earth. We’ve got farm land, we’ve got rolling hill, we’ve got endless stretches of undisturbed forest, we’ve got majestic mountains shrouded in mist, we’ve got great football, we’ve got cities and culture. In fact we have two cultures in PA. We’ve got a modified East Coast culture on my side of the mountains, and we’ve got a mountain culture a people of the wilderness who are pleasant if a bit redneckish. But of all of this I am ashamed to admit that every February 2nd in a town called Punxsutawney in Western Pa, we completely embarrass ourselves. Since 1887, the small town of Punxsutawney, yes it really exists, has been pulling a sleepy fat rat thing we call a groundhog out of it’s hole just so it can “see” it’s shadow and be forced back into it’s hole. Why? So we can say that there will be 6 more weeks of winter. Apparently this started in Europe as a holiday called Candlemas; except the animal was a hedgehog, a smaller spiny rat-like creature. When the Pilgrims came over they couldn’t find any hedgehogs so they drug the fat thing that kept eating their vegetables out of its hole instead. There’s even a movie based around day, call “Groundhog Day” of course, staring Bill Murray. This kind of puts a hole in my theory that a bunch of drunk guys decided to pull one of the rats from their holes on cold February morning and everyone was entertained enough that they didn’t again the next year…only sober. To my everlasting shame I was asked if Groundhog Day was real, when I was in New Zealand. I never thought that I would be asked about it, but there I was sitting at the table explaining the legend to the kind old lady.
So there they are, four of my most prominent reasons for disliking February. I hope I was able to supply a bit of a laugh for you.

A.T.H.