Snow sucks.

As I told my friends Steve(iiv) and (by PM) Mr. Philbin, my doctor appointment was indeed canceled because of the snow yesterday. They closed the schools. The guy who plows my driveway came. And all the new snow was pretty much melted by five o'clock.

Snow sucks.

Normally I'd have been glad not to be more inconvenienced, indifferent to having to reschedule with the doctor, rueful about having to pay Mr. Plow, and snickerish at the kids who are going to have to make up the school day in June. But I'm too freaking sick of the white crap to feel anything but nauseated and tired.

Less than a month ago we got slammed with more than two feet of snow here. It was an absolute white nightmare.

Q: How can you tell your town got hammered by bad weather?

A: When the city media, an hour away, sends a guy to do live coverage from the parking lot of your diner.

blarg

It was one of those storms that makes the world dwindle away. It just shrinks around you as the walls of snow grow higher. People find it cozy, and I know I used to as well -- when I wasn't responsible for making money and keeping the house intact and stocking provisions and walking two big dogs.

And that last part proved to be one of the biggest problems. Not so much Tralfaz, the big guy, because his love of snow is legendary. But the little guy, Nipper -- "little" being a relative term, as he is about 100 pounds of fun himself -- could not figure out how to pee in snow that was up to his neck. No kidding, this dog was traumatized.

The night of the blizzard I had him out in the road. The only place he would go was against the walls of snow left by the plows, and that was after a whole lot of walking and sniffing and mushing the snow walls down a little so he didn't have to pee right on the pavement. As those walls get higher, you get smaller. So we're walking up the street at about ten p.m., the plowed-up snow making cliffs up to five feet high around us in the valley, looking and sniffing in a world gone very quiet. Then the plow came roaring down the hill.

These huge municipal plows take up most of the street, except when there's been a huge snowfall, when they take up the entire street. Dash to the side of the road? There was no side of the road; the sidewalks, the curbs, and everyone's driveway was buried. Our plow guy had made his first pass (there would be others), which is how Nipper and I got to the street -- and it was the only place we could go to get out of the way of the plow. That beast wasn't stopping for anything. The street under our six feet was slick, sloppy, slushy. And we had to run.

Nipper is fast, but didn't understand the need for urgency, since -- hello! Still gotta pee here! So I turned, pulling him, trying to keep upright, my legs pinwheeling like Wile E. Coyote's, and behind us the ROAR of this mighty machine that might as well have had no brakes.

And we made it back to our driveway with about three seconds to spare.

We both almost peed right then.

The next day, on suggestion of the brilliant Mrs. Key, I dug a large area on the lawn so the guys would have someplace to do their thing that was past their necks. In other words, I shoveled the freaking lawn. But it did help.

Q: How long did it take for all of that snow to melt?

A: I'll let when it does because it still isn't all gone. Really, yesterday's snow landed on piles that have been around since March 7. There are still mounds in the supermarket lot you could ski on.

This is why you don't hear "Winter Wonderland" or "Let It Snow" or "Marshmallow World" after Christmas. It's not just that these songs are completely associated with the holiday; it's because after December that snow crap gets serious.