When it’s too miserable out to get anything done, take that gift

When the whole Kansas City area started last weekend by hoarding food staples and hunkering down for what ended up being little more than an ice storm drill, you know who I felt sorry for?

The poor folks in those perpetually sunny climes who stroll all through January in short sleeves without a shiver.

Sure, they never have to worry whether they’ll need to move all the food from a dead fridge to a frozen porch if ice-heavy tree branches crash onto power lines. But they’ll also never get to wipe their weekend calendars free on a Friday when it looks like all the roads are about to become bumper car tracks.

My office shut down at 1 o’clock on the Friday we were expecting the ice to hit, and on the way home I called some friends out west to talk about the forecast. (Poor things never get real weather of their own to talk about.)

Nobody picked up. They were all still stuck at work — as planned — and looking ahead to everything they had to do that weekend — as planned.

I, on the other hand, was no longer facing anything I had to do for a couple days.

Kids’ sports were canceled, church already seemed unlikely and it looked like it was going to be too dicey to drive anywhere. All of a sudden my only responsibility that afternoon was to make sure my wife and I had lemons and whiskey for a weekend’s worth of hot toddies and the boys had plenty of marshmallows for their cocoa.

Once those essentials were covered, there was even time for a library run to stock up on enough Indiana Jones and Hunger Games movies to see us through until the thaw.

Miserable as a bad ice storm can be, the freedom that comes when the whole city pretty much agrees to hunker down and wait it out is a huge indulgence.

You learn a lot about yourself when you’re unbound by any expectation to be productive.

Me, I learned that I might be constitutionally incapable of appreciating the gift of a cleared calendar. As soon as I’d laid in the drink supplies and lined up the movies, I thought I’d putter around a little on the bathroom remodel that’s been sitting on my honey-do list for too long. There were a couple little tasks I could knock out — touching up spots where the paint didn’t quite cover and running a bead of caulk.

But then I realized that despite the predictions of ice-slicked doom, roads were still fine. Maybe I could make a quick run to the hardware store before it really came down.

Six or eight trips back to the store and two days later, the whole remodel was finished except for a plumbing job that everyone in the house felt safer seeing hired out to a professional who knew what he was doing.

All that freedom, and I’d squandered it on work. Never even got around to opening the whiskey.

I blame my upbringing. Not having grown up here, my ability to savor all the various pleasures in our weather is sometimes more aspirational than substantive.

There’s hope, though.

One of our last tornado warnings hit when I was at my community center with my dad and two sons. We were herded into a packed, humid basement with nothing to do but lean on a wall and talk until the danger passed. I loved it.

I need to remember that relaxing tornado vigil and the squandered, overhyped ice storm. And next time we all decide the weather is too miserable to get anything done, I’m going to try a little harder to really not get anything done.

There are too many unfortunates living in unending balminess who’ll never have the chance.

This story was originally published January 20, 2017 at 3:40 PM with the headline "When it’s too miserable out to get anything done, take that gift."