The Winter Survival Guide

Need more help getting through February? Try on these 28 happy thoughts…

1. If you call in sick, your boss actually believes you.

2. Just three weekends in February means your recession-reduced fun-time budget will go a little further.

3. And one of them is three days long. Thanks, Presidents’ Day!

4. Even though you have to dig it out to actually drive it, your car can’t get towed for street cleaning.

5. Shoveling snow can burn more than 400 calories per hour.

6. Wearing gloves neutralizes those germy doorknobs.

7. At this time of year, you definitely know someone fatter, paler, and/or hairier than you.

8. There’s 300-plus days until the holiday chaos starts up again (or at least 200 until decorations start popping up in malls).

9. You don’t feel lazy for taking a cab instead of walking.

10. Without A/C units hanging out of their windows, brownstones look pretty again.

11. You can shop online for bikinis and shorts, safe in the knowledge that there’s still five months till you have to fit into them.

12. Storrow Drive never gets turned into event parking in February.

13. No houseguests in their right minds would beg to go on a duck-boat tour right now.

14. It’s okay to leave groceries in the car for an hour.

15. Nothing to rake, mow, prune, or weed.

16. There’s three whole months until you have to sit in Cape traffic again.

17. Fewer mood swings: The Sox are neither winning nor losing right now.

18. It’s easier to feel like a good Samaritan: Just allowing frost-bitten pedestrians the right of way provides warm fuzzies.

19. Now that Peeps hearts have been invented, Valentine’s Day has a reason to exist.

20. The holiday lights on the Commonwealth Avenue Mall are still up and twinkling.

21. Even the Hub’s eyesores (hello, Allston!) look picturesque when covered in snow.

22. Slipping on ice and bruising your tush makes for a great excuse to telecommute.

23. There aren’t as many crazy cyclists on the roads.

24. With the trees bare, you can peek at all the fancy W-town estates without having to go up the driveways.

25. Shorter lines at J. P. Licks.

26. Turtlenecks hide turkey necks.

27. You can buy expensive chocolate for yourself and say it’s for someone else.

28. At least it’s not a leap year!