How to make summer come faster

It has been a long, hard winter. Utah County has suffered through weeks and weeks of gray skies, intermittent and unpredictable snowfall, icy roads, biting wind, and frozen appendages. Winter has forcefully taken all color and warmth from the county, holding inhabitants prisoner under skies that are the same shade as the enormous snow piles that line the road.

“Spring,” as it has been called, has not been any better. Teasing us with days of warm temperatures and sunny skies followed by bitter, bone-chilling cold and inches (inches! plural!) of snow, spring of 2009 has proven to be a fickle mistress.
It’s about time for the prisoners to strike out against their frosty warden. Here’s how:

1. Two words: aerosol and Freon. Less ozone means less winter.

2. Use reverse psychology on the weather. Buy a bunch of winter clothes and pick up stocks in snowboarding companies. This is especially useful if you have a history of bad luck. Use that to your advantage and make spring come out of hiding.

3. Send threatening letters to Punxsutawney Phil and your local weatherman.

4. Drain Utah Lake, to get rid of the lake effect entirely.

5. Surround yourself with pastels, and create an apocryphal spring for yourself. Turn up the thermostat, record reruns of MTV’s spring break episodes and put them on repeat, and imagine your way to Easter.

6. Stage protests. This is particularly easy, since the weather is everywhere and it doesn’t really matter where you choose to protest its misbehavior.

7. Get your taxes done. It is possible, after all, that the IRS holds spring hostage until they have received enough money.

8. If all else fails, try your hand with the patron saints of good weather: Agricola of Avignon, Fridolin, and Medard of Noyon (according to saints.sqpn.com). If Catholicism isn’t your thing, try performing a Shinto dragon dance to promote good weather and a fair harvest. It certainly can’t hurt.