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This morning my plan was to drive my car into work and pay some money so that I could park her (my car is a Kia, so definitely a lady) indoors to let her thaw out. What happened instead? Instead she was stuck in the ice and to add a little “fuck you” to the whole affair the latch for the trunk (presumably) froze. Because Sarah’s the best, she called CAA, got the car pulled out of the ice and to the shop to get the trunk fixed while I hustled to work so that I wasn’t insanely late. The whole thing was just a string of reminders of how much winters in Montreal suck. If you’re not from Montreal I recommend listening to this song by Raine Maida about the cold winds of Montreal. The song sucks as much as wintertime in our beautiful city.

But then, I got to thinking, surely there is an upside to this garbage weather. Off the top of my head, here are five.

1)      Socially Acceptable Hermit Behavior

You want to know what I did last Friday night? I stayed at home at watched Breaking Bad on Netflix. It was great. The best part, when people asked me, “Hey, what did you do on Friday?” I could proudly say “Watched Breaking Bad on Netflix.” And everyone was like, “Cool”.

During the summer, staying in and watching Netflix on a Friday night feels like you’re wasting the evening. During the winter, the same activity feels completely justified. It’s great, you get to go home early and be in your pajamas before supper and nobody will hold it against you. It’s a free pass to unleash the inner antisocial hermit inside us all.

2)      Increased Appreciation for the Summer

In the summer we have Just for Laughs, fireworks, Fantasia, Jazz Fest, La Ronde, Fringe Festival and a million other reasons to spend time outside mingling with other party-starved Montrealers. I think it stands to reason that the reason we go so fucking apeshit for partying in the summer is because we know that at any given point of the summer we are less than six months away from an icy hell.

So we party our faces off all summer long because we might die of exposure or pneumonia in December. Every summer might be our last.

3)      A Free Pass on Hair and Fashion

Does your hair look like shit? It’s because you wore a toque all day. Loose baggy hoody instead of a proper blazer or sweater? It’s the warmest thing I own. Jogging pants to work? Ok, there are limits and that’s never ok.

Everyone is willing to turn a blind eye to how terrible you look because everyone understands that staying warm takes precedence over looking acceptable. Personally, I use it as an excuse to barely shave during the winter. Who am I kidding? I barely shave all year long. I rock a scruffy once a week shave look for 12 months, but for 6 months nobody judges me for it.

BONUS: As a result of this phenomenon there’s a fun game I like to call “Are they hot?”  when people come indoors. That shapeless guy/girl (determining gender can be half the fun) that just came inside? Try to figure out of he/she is hot or not before the hat, scarf, mittens, coat and whatever else they’re shielding themselves with comes off.

4)      A Sense of Shared Triumph

Adversity brings people together, I don’t have a psychology professor to quote on this but I’m pretty sure that if you Google that shit you’ll find out that I’m telling the truth. Each and every winter we Montrealers face adversity together. Our winters freezing temperatures and epic snowfalls would shut down and crippler other, lesser cities and we overcome it and shrug it off because we are badass motherfuckers.

I’m reminded of a story that happened used to work at a Montreal call center that had a counterpart in Vancouver. Both cities had snowstorms in the forecast of a particular night, 10 cm for Vancouver and 40 cm for Montreal. Two emails went out to the employees. To the Vancouver employees: “We’re expecting 10 cm of snow, call the emergency line to find out if the call center has been closed.” To the Montreal employees: “We’re expecting 40 cm of snow, make sure you leave early so you’re not late to work.” See? We’re badass.

Every year we overcome a shitty winter and as a result we love each other just a little more. If you’ve ever helped or been helped getting a car out of the snow you know I’m preaching the gospel truth here.

5)      Hockey

Other Canadian cities think they know hockey, but we all know that they’re full of shit. 24 Stanley Cups, more Hall of Fame members than anyone else and one of the best jerseys in sports (that’s an ESPN link right there, and we all know ESPN doesn’t give a shit about hockey, so if they say our logo is good, it’s legit) makes our Montreal Canadiens the be-all, end-all of hockey clubs.

Even non-sports fans know about the comings and goings of the team, you can strike up a conversation with nearly anyone from Montreal by learning two simple phrases:

“Did you see the game?” and “Avez-vous vu le match?”

The fact that hockey happens during the winter gives all of us (ok, most of us) something to look forward to when the temperature drops and the snow starts to fall.

So yeah, even though there are a lot of things that really suck I think that on the whole the winter has more than just a silver lining. Montreal winters make us better, stronger, closer people.

Or something.

Fuck you man I’m trying to justify that we just paid 80$ for our trunk to close properly since the winter just fucked over my car.

Image of Montreal From Canada Nightlife.ca
Lady ready for Winter from Buck Paradise
Montreal Party photo from Tourisme Montreal 
Netflix and Montreal Canadiens logos belong to their respective massive corporate conglomerates.