It’s winters like this when I ask myself why the heck I’m still in Utah.

Sure, the last couple of days have been relatively warm and sunny (now knock on wood that it won’t already be blizzarding again by the time this goes to print), but we still have to maneuver around towering snowbanks wherever we go. And let’s not be so quick to forget the trials of this past month, my personal favorite being the time our streets and sidewalks became bona fide ice-skating rinks overnight.

But I’m not blaming the weather. It can’t help it. I often wish there was somebody I could call and complain to about all this, but there isn’t, so instead, I’m going to take it out on those of you who go around saying how much you love the snow.

Yeah, you know who you are. As far as I’m concerned, when you come inside from a lethal snowstorm chirping, “Yay, it’s snowing!”, that’s akin to crowing about how much you love seeing people get in car accidents — which no one can argue is stretching it, given that there’s a very real correlation between the two.

Reasons that, if you love the snow, you have a moral obligation to keep it to yourself:

1. First of all, it’s the mountains and reservoirs that need snow. There’s no particular reason that we down here need to be bothered by it if it’s still snowing in the mountains. Sure, it would be a silver lining if we knew that all our suffering was ultimately improving the water supply, but guess what? According to the Standard-Examiner, barely any of this snow will go into the reservoir. Unless we get a lot more of it, it has all been for naught.

2. I’m not going to complain about school getting canceled because of it, but for those who get paid hourly and have long commutes, the weather can cost them very substantial money. My own mother has a two-hour commute to and from work every day, so her employer very kindly told her not to come up at all last week. That’s great for her in the short term, but it also means she doesn’t know how to pay her rent this month.

3. If you do your shoveling, at least with snow this plentiful and heavy, you get back spasms every time you move for the next few days. If you don’t right away, though, and your neighbors haven’t had time to yet either, and you find yourself having to walk to the bus, and that bus straight-up ignores you because it already has too many passengers, then you have sweat running down your face and shooting pains strangling your legs by the time you finally get home, because traipsing through snow that deep is as physically taxing as having to pull your feet out of quicksand with every step. Check your privilege, those of you don’t have to walk or take the bus. But then, of course . . .

4. . . . driving in it is even worse. I don’t have a car of my own, so I’ve been relatively sheltered from this aspect of it, but I’m still terrified when I even have to ride in a car in the snow.

5. Despite the (debatable) aesthetic value of it, what possible reason could you have to “love” the snow? The only thing I can think of is you are (a) still 8 years old and wait all year to be able to make snowmen, or (b) you have an 8-year-old who loves it, but if you’re a student and you have time and energy to go out and make snow angels, we’re not even speaking the same language anymore.

However, I’ve noticed that, as the snow and ice becomes increasingly more irksome and/or life-threatening, the snow-lovers have been getting less vocal about it. Could it be that your precious snow is betraying even you, hmm?