It's time to bring on spring!

I hate cold weather. Wait. Hate isn't a strong enough word to truly explain how I feel about the cold. I despise the cold weather.

Once the temperature drops below 50 degrees it is too cold for me. I would much rather be wearing flip flops, shorts and a T-shirt while sweating to death in the humid Missouri weather.

Normally, I can tolerate the cold, but it has been way too frigid for me lately. I went out to get the mail yesterday and when I came inside I tried to climb in the freezer just to warm up.

My brain is still frozen, as you will be able to tell from this poorly written column. If I knew how to turn on my oven I might just stick my head it in to defrost the noggin' and break free a few ideas. It's even too cold for my dogs. I open the door to let them out and they just look at me like I'm crazy and turn around and hide under the covers. Now they just lay around with their legs crossed waiting until spring.

I can't blame them. When I go outside I look like the Michelin Man. I put so many shirts and layers of pants with my coat, gloves and stocking cap that I waddle instead of walk.

I slipped on the ice the other day and it took me 10 minutes to get up. My dogs didn't help either, looking out the door laughing. They could have at least helped roll me inside.

Last winter I went to Colorado to go snowmobiling. Halfway there my friend looked at me bundled up with a heavy coat, gloves and stocking cap, sitting on my hands helping warm them with the heated seats in his truck.

"You do realize it's going to be cold up on the mountain?"

"I obviously didn't think this through," I shivered.

While snowmobiling was fun I almost died. Did you know when your boogers freeze you can die of suffocation?

Our last day in Colorado it was below zero when we woke up. It was so cold when I turned on the shower I thought it was hailing. The ice scraper was frozen to the truck so we had to defrost it before we could scrape the ice off the truck windshield.

I can't believe people actually want to live in places where it is that cold. I have friends that try to convince me that there are all kinds of things to do in the cold weather. Snowmobiling, snow skiing, ice skating and ice fishing.

I can think of things that are awful about each one of those activities. Freezing to death, frost bite, shivering and frozen boogers just to start. And why would anyone want to ice fish? The last thing I want to do in the freezing weather is go outside and sit, waiting for hours for fish to bite. I think people who live in those cold areas just have had their brains frozen so much they have very few brain cells left.

Scientists keep talking about this global warming but I've yet to see it. I don't see the problem with global warming. Myself I'm against freezing to death so I want to speed up the global warming process. The last thing I'm concerned with is the ozone layer while my teeth are chattering just walking from the parking lot to the office.

I want to be like a bear and just stay indoors sleeping and eating all the food I have stored. I've already grown the beard and the hair just keeps thinning so I think I'm out of luck there. Unfortunately I can't find anyone to pay me to sleep and eat so I am forced to brave the despicable cold weather.

Why, you may ask, am I living in Missouri when I could be on a beach in Florida getting tan with my feet in the ocean? That's a great question. I'm wondering that myself. I'm looking at classified ads as soon as I'm finished writing this.

Fortunately January is almost over and winter is, well crap, still here for another month or more. Groundhog Day is just days away and if that fat, furry little creature sees his shadow I may have to go groundhog hunting. When it warms up, of course.