By Jefferson Weaver
I despise February.
It looms, lurks and leers like a feral mother-in-law off her medications who sold her daughter’s wedding ring to buy a rewards card from the liquor store.
Every year, February slithers and slips and sneaks around the edges of the rest of the year, scrabbling through the seasons like a three-legged half-rabid raccoon in the attic, waiting for the opportunity to damage and destroy and despoil when it is least expected. It is appropriate that February comes after we have almost returned to normal from the post-holiday glow of Christmas. Just about the time we have regained our work, sleep, financial, and recreation cycles, February rolls in with an awful assemblage of awkward analogies and abominable alliteration.
See what I mean?
I hate February.
Now, there are a few bright points of light in the murkily malevolent miasma that clouds the otherwise crystal blue skies of winter. There’s Valentine’s Day, which I truly like, as well as the end of the misery that is professional football. There are a number of birthdays which are important to me: my Sister the Troll, my beloved mother-in-law, and a number of my closest friends and tolerable relatives. Our church homecoming is in February. February marked the “official” start of the American Revolution in North Carolina back in 1776. Oh yes, and then there’s — No. Wait. That’s it. There’s nothing else good about February.
This year is even worse than most Februaries, since it includes an extra day to adjust for the calendar. Leap years prolong the misery by an entire day, which may not seem like much, but when the very minutes and seconds of torment are being counted down, an entire extra day of February is almost too much for the senses.
I detest February.
Even if I were not still too crippled up to do so, February is not a good month to be a sportsman. The fur is poor on the animals I would trap. Deer and bear seasons are but sweet memories, but pigs are on the rampage, albeit mostly at night, and deep in the swamps where they won’t be molested. Small game animals have begun to breed, so a responsible hunter isn’t going to take a chance on reducing next year’s harvest. I don’t duck hunt, since defining whether a bird is in season or an express ticket to court isn’t among my pleasures. What few quail we have need to be allowed to rest and rebuild for the nesting season.
Turkey season is something like a year away – well, maybe it’s only a couple months, but it’s a long, long, long time, just like February.
There is virtually nothing green left for my horses and donkey to eat, so purchasing hay becomes more common than purchasing heating fuel (and almost as expensive).
This year, we had something less than an inch of rain during the entire month of January. Now, as we start February, we were forecast to have more than that over the course of a day and a half. February often doesn’t even have the decency to allow its rain to crystallize into a pretty snowfall, but instead freezes it rudely and coarsely, creating ice and freezing rain and sleet that add insult to injury, sending vehicles careening into ditches until the pernicious, peevish precipitation melts into a monstrous mud that leads to damaged transmissions, bent fenders and run-on sentences.
February, you repulse me.
As I have noted before, it was on a February day that a girlfriend broke up with me, I lost a job and was in two wrecks whilst chasing a tornado. The next weekend, being bored and at ends for something to do, I tried to burn some leaves and limbs in my yard, and ended up causing a small woodsfire. The February before that one, I had broken up with another paramour, who in many ways epitomized the month. That parting which was truly sweet with no sorrow should be a reason to celebrate February, but the overwhelming repugnance of the month salts the spirit of any celebration like a depressed professional mourner with a megaphone.
February is often neither cold nor warm, but tepid and tempestuous. I have worn shorts and short sleeves in the morning and long handles and a heavy coat by afternoon. The schizophrenia that is such a charming part of our weather in North Carolina can be full-on manic during February, waiting just long enough to lull one into a false sense of security before shaking the thermometer with the vigor of a vandal with a can of Krylon and a newly-painted railway car.
February’s foulness leaves me befuddled, fuming, fussy, and frustrated. February is never being completely warm or dry, properly hydrated or well-rested.
February is the sharp-edged furniture in the darkened living room at 3 in the morning. February is a bottle of root beer saved for a special occasion that somehow is flat when you crack the lid. February is a $20 cigar that’s been visited by an angry tomcat. February is a half-burned sparkplug wire a hundred miles from home on a Sunday evening. February is discovering a penicillin factory worth of mold on the bottom of the last two pieces of sandwich bread, three days before payday. February is finding half a worm in an apple.
I do not like February.
But thankfully, February will give way, eventually; it might fight like a broken tooth, but it will give way.
February brings the first flowers, as daffodils and jonquils proudly stand defiant against the cold and sometimes ice, their yellow and gold hues acting as small colorful promises against the browns and tans and grays and blacks of a winter not quite ready to quit.
The first green will show on the stalks of the sassafras, showing that it’s time to yank the tender roots from the ground, brushing off the dirt from the roots and reveling in the sap-rich inner bark and sweet scent of the stalk.
February will eventually bring the bass to bed, smashing a topwater lure as the jack pickerel slash from the weedbeds like hungry lions on an African plain. The catfish will stir with a bit more vigor than they have in recent weeks, as they pouted in their gloom and awaited more sensible weather.
March will come soon to rescue us from February’s perfidy, knocking aside the twisted, filthy tormentor of a stunted month, and welcoming the first babies of spring. March will bring warmer temperatures (with a few cold snaps, to keep us honest), and christen the first days of sweat that feels honest, not sour from being trapped within a dozen layers of fabric.
February will eventually be kicked back into the shadows to sulk and snarl, seeking comfort from its equally noxious cousin, August. March will lay the groundwork for the glory of April and May, and for a while everything will be all
right again.
But that’s all in the future.
For another four weeks, February will run foul and free, a bad dog with a worse attitude.
In case you haven’t noticed — I loathe February.
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