Snow

Snow is your friend.

This may be hard to swallow at seven A.M. when you're scraping the windshield with a credit card, but it's undeniably true. As I watch the first true snow of the winter drift down onto the grass, I'm already thinking about all that wonderful free fun, just falling from the heavens.

(Product Placement! Even you, Ms. or Mr. Low Cash, can get a scraper for under three bucks! Then you can scrape with gloves on! You'll want to scrape all the time! Scrape friends, neighbors, household pets! Scraper: cheaper than dropping your credit card into the storm drain because your fingers went numb.)

For starters, snow gives you a great excuse to do NOTHING, which is better than sex a lot of the time. And that's not meant to denigrate sex (another venerable low cash pastime). When it's 70 out and the sky is Disney blue, everyone thinks you're some kind of sick puppy if you choose not to finish a triathlon, but when it snows (at least in the temperate zones) it suddenly becomes acceptable to sit inside and drink hot things and watch TV that appeals primarily to the reptilian part of your brain.

But there's so much more than brain-stem TV. You can go outside. Just going for a walk is more pleasant when there's snow on the ground. Yes, I know, it's cold.... but it would be cold if the concrete was bare, too, and uglier. With snow, it somehow magically feels safe to walk to the Stop 'n' Rob and buy a 40 because everyone is either in some kind of jolly Santa Claus mood or at home, shivering. Especially new-fallen snow. Nobody ever gets robbed when snow is falling, unless you're in a select sub-genre of Mafia movies or Russian. You can look your fellow man confidently in the eye and share that knowing glance that says "DAMN ITS COLD". Indirectly, the chill warms your heart.

Now, in all likelihood we won't get enough tonight, but there's all kinds of low-cash snow sports. Sledding is first among them. The best part about sledding is that you don't need a sled. You just need a THING. Last year I had a great deal of success with some Lexan sheeting a friend "liberated" from a construction site. While it was certainly a hit, our thunder was stolen on the main hill in town by a dynamic duo who had brought along the most ancient non-sled of all: the car hood. Any car hood will do, although it's best to pick one of the classic block-long slabs of Detroit Iron - the hoods alone are the size of picnic tables, and weigh something like fifty pounds. That's fifty extra pounds of force plowing you into that delicious crash at the bottom of the hill. I can almost taste the blood on my lower lip...

Soon. Soon.