THE BORN LESAR

C’mon, this rotten weather has to end, right?

(Just to prove that history repeats itself, this column was written exactly 11 years ago, during a spring comparably cold to this miserable one. Global cooling? Hmm...)

So, are you always this crabby or is it just that the Easter bunny forgot to bring you enough of those big milk chocolate eggs that are filled with sugar, creme, sugar, artificial sweeteners, sugar, frosting, and sugar? Yeah, I know, I like 'em too. And as for that sweet little girl with the pink frilly bonnet who fell down outside the store and spilled her basket and lost all of her candy -- I have no idea what you're talking about.

But don't change the subject, you're ornery and you know it. You've been this way for several weeks now and I'm beginning to think you've either got a severe hormonal imbalance or you've been written out of your parents' will again. See, I told you, you can't just put 'em in a nursing home and tell the staff you'll be by to pick up their stuff after the funerals. It's rude.

Oh, wait, I'll bet I know what it is -- it's the weather, isn't it? You're crankier than a kitty cat with a corn skewer in its ear (hey, don't look at me) because it's been snowin' and rainin' and blowin' since last October, ain't you? Ha, I knew it. And your spouse said you were just mad because Desperate Housewives wasn't on again last week.

Well, don't feel bad, as it's proven science that human beings' moods are closely related to the atmospheric conditions at a given time. In fact, if I were to take time and search for actual corroboration of that last statement, I do believe I'd find some, but I don't see any sense in wasting my valuable hours in such footnoting folly. Let's just assume -- if it's cloudy, you're crabby. End of story. Shut the door. Case closed. Let's wrap it up (please).

Poor weather is an especially mood-lowering condition when it comes in spring, when we have been waiting through a long, brutal winter for the warmth to arrive. Right now, for example, after what was a particularly snowy and cold December-March period, we're all anxious for some sunny days, but all we're getting is sleet, cold, wind and the threat of Donald Trump entering the 2012 presidential race. Is it any wonder you've been acting like a de-clawed wolverine with mange lately? Goodness no. It doesn't excuse your behavior, no, but at least we have a diagnosis.

Physiologically, what's going on in your brain when bad weather strikes is this: First the optical light receptors in your eyes (where'd you expect to find your optical receptors, in your armpit?) react to the low sun levels by emitting a chemical secretion that flows into your sinus cavities, causing you to sneeze a large, moist loogie onto your best spring blouse. Since you're now selfconscious of the mucousy mess on your front, you walk with your head down, and you stub your toes on a piece of heavy office furniture. Now limping wildly, you throw out your third lumbar disc and crush three tiny bones in your coccyx, requiring extended traction, ultrasound therapy and possibly highly invasive surgery. After getting that diagnosis, the attending physician in the emergency room also tells you that the lump on your side is probably not an extra spleen, like your quack family doctor has been telling you for 10 years, but it's nothing that a complete blood transfusion, a liver transplant and a really, really cold enema won't fix.

Wow. Sometimes I surprise even myself with my in-depth scientific analyses.

Moving on -- and you should before your dog recruits the rest of his pooch pals in the neighborhood to bury you alive -- there are ways to overcome the temporary malaise often brought on by extended periods of sodden days. The first one that immediately springs to mind is the partial temporal lobe-ectomy, but the trouble is, it also tends to leave you staring blankly and drooling onto you own lap when the weather gets nice again. Pills can be effective, too, but again, if you take just six yellow ones, three green ones, one of the big black ones, and half-a-bottle of the white creme on bad days, then you're gonna' want some on sunny ones, too. Then when the nice men in the white coats say you can't have any more, you just end up getting cranky again, and really, you're right back where you started.

Music can be good temporary low-mood therapy, unless you stumble onto a country music station that's playing a 4-hour marathon of honky tonk blues tunes, and then you're reaching for the sleeping pills and a jug of vodka before any Conway Twitty tunes have even started. OK, maybe reading is a better way to take your mind off your depression, just be careful not to grab any of those romance novels that will remind you that you're stuck in a dead-end relationship and never will find the person of your dreams to sweep you off to Hawaii, Bermuda, or that great walleye lake off County Trunk TT. OK then, geez, why don't you just call a close friend to talk to for a while, making certain, of course, not to mention those eight years that the two of you refused to speak to one another because of that little incident with the home video camera, the hamster and the tire pump, and YouTube. Boy, you'd never think that many people would wanna' watch such stuff now, would ya.' Patience, probably, is the best prescription for the poor weather blues, because sooner or later, you know the skies are going to clear out, the sun will gaze down upon us, and all will be right with the world again. Oh, never mind the Farmer's Almanac and its forecast of gloomy, cool conditions for the whole summer, you know those things aren't right 15 percent of the time anyway. Just hang in there, it's almost May already, and you know that always means temperatures in the 70s, green grass, flowers blooming, picnics, baseball games, severe storms, mosquitoes, localized heavy flooding, ticks with Lyme's disease, allergies, heavy frosts just after your garden seedlings have emerged, and if you're really luck, a gorgeous double rainbow, just after the tornado has thrown your upstairs bedrooms into the neighbor's pool.

Honestly, though, you've seemed awfully irritable lately, and I do hope it's just the lousy weather of late. If it's something more serious than that, I do wish you' get some help. Oh, no, not from me, I'm way too busy for that. I'm going to visit your parents. I think they're going to give me your bike.