SEASONS: FAREWELL, WIMPY WINTER

Reboot your gear for spring time

It seems fair to say this was the winter that wasn’t. According to the National Weather Service, Fredericksburg received about one-tenth of an inch of snow all season. You could probably make a more impressive snow angel in this year’s pollen.

But don’t fret. Your unused winter supplies need not go to waste. Just follow our unorthodox suggestions.

—Edie Gross

ICE SCRAPER

Little snow and ice this winter means lots of extra bugs this spring, many of whom will meet an expeditious end on the grill of your car. Convert your ice scraper to a bug scraper to get rid of the bodies.

SNOW BOOTS

How will anyone admire these fashionable accoutrements if you’re wearing flip–flops for the next six months? Relax. Place them on your front porch, fill them with dirt and plant daisies in them. Then wait for the inevitable camera crew from HGTV’s new show, “Pimp My Porch.”

ICE SKATES

Think of the blade on the bottom of a skate—nice and sharp from disuse this winter—as a multi-tool. You can shave with it. Dice vegetables with it. Trim the hedges with it. Or ward off marauding ninjas. Your call.

SNOW TIRES

A regular bald tire makes a fine tire swing, but it will not get you the girl. On the other hand, if you throw a rope around a tree limb and attach a tire with high-performance directional treads molded from a winter polymer compound scientifically engineered to maintain molecular adhesion well, let’s just say

you might want to keep that ice skate handy to fight them all off.

SCARVES

With temperatures rising into the 70s this winter, you probably had few opportunities to wrap your neck in that stunning new scarf you bought. No worries. Simply tie that sucker around your forehead, and you’ll have the most fashionable sweat band on the tennis court. Even Muffie, the country club loud- mouth, will be envious. And if she isn’t, well, no one likes her anyway.

SNOW DAYS

Seems a shame to waste these, so how about this: Simply rename them No-Show Days and when the weather is particularly gorgeous outside, the powers-that-be can cancel school and work because it’s just too nice to sit

at a desk all day.

SLED DOG

On the snowiest days, when the drifts were too much for your hybrid vehicle to handle, you’d planned to mush your way into the office with a little help from White Fang. Alas, he spent the winter sunning himself on your back porch.

But he’s itching to do a job.

So hitch him up to the lawn mower and earn yourself the neighborhood’s coveted Yard of the Month award in no time.

SNOW SHOVEL

If you missed the tell-tale back pain this winter that comes from repeatedly shoveling your driveway, cheer up. You can get that same achy discomfort by constantly shoveling beach sand out of whichever car you choose to take on your family’s summer vacation.

ROAD SALT

What do you do when you have tons of extra salt lying around? You make tons of margaritas, of course! And, because road salt sometimes contains chrome, copper, lead, nickel, arsenic and/or cyanide, you’ll be getting bonus chemicals you’d never get from plain-old regular table salt! Hurray!

MITTENS

You could pay 10 bucks for one of those fashionable coffee cup cozies that tells the world, “In spite of this economic downtown, I’ve got money to burn on a turtleneck for my drink.” Or, you could simply slip the cup down into your mitten, keeping the drink hot and your hands not.

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