Doug Clark: Spokane deserves more credit for depressing winters

Once again, our grand Lilac City has been snubbed worse than Bernie Sanders at a bankers’ convention.

The financial website Smartasset, which sounds totally made up even if it’s not, last week ranked Spokane as having the nation’s fourth most depressing winters.

Fourth place? How embarrassing.

Coming in fourth in anything is a slap in the kisser, but this time it’s a bloody outrage.

That’s because the Smartasset jerks ranked us behind Seattle, in second, and Portland, which they named as having the third most depressing winters.

Portland? What do those hippies know about winter? One snowflake falls and the whole weird burg goes into a tie-dyed tizzy.

This is just the latest example of how the West Side always gets more recognition than we East Siders get, even when that recognition is lousy.

It’s no wonder Matt Shea wants to secede and form a 51st state.

Come to think of it, just having Shea over here all the time should give us extra points on any depression list.

Speaking of which, the Smartasset rankings were apparently calculated by measuring the amount of sunshine and solar radiation that a given area receives during winter.

In that respect, the entire Pacific Northwest is pretty much the Land of the Morlocks from November through February.

But winter is about so much more than just how often you’re able to glimpse Old Sol. You have to also figure in the snow volume factor and the pothole aggravation factor and the damned snowplow burying your damned driveway factor and the …

Put it all together and we should all be on mood elevators.

This winter has been such a downer. If I didn’t have this column to finish, I’d seriously consider burying my sorrows in another half-gallon of Dreyer’s peppermint ice cream.

Now, I’m not saying that Spokane deserves to be at the summit of a Winter Depression List.

Smartasset gave that dubious distinction to Anchorage, and I can’t disagree.

Anchorage is in Alaska. Everyone knows that even a mild Alaskan winter is dark and dreary with intermittent flurries of cannibalism.

Just wanting to live in Alaska should qualify someone for a shrink’s couch.

But down here in the continental United States?

It’s a no-brainer that Snowkane has more discouraging winters than Portland and Seattle combined. Period.

Even the Smartasset writers made it sound like we were one flake away from passing the poison Kool-Aid.

“The fourth city in a northwest quadrumvirate of gloominess, Spokane is actually slightly further north than Seattle – its shortest day is a full 23 seconds shorter than Seattle.”

Quadrumvirate of gloominess.

There’s a line you’ll never see in a visitor’s bureau brochure.

But then Smartasset blew it by adding: “The good news for Spokanites is that their weather isn’t quite as gloomy as either Seattle’s or Portland’s.”

What? Says who?

That is such an arbitrary bag of bull.

Look, I’m as happy as anyone that this winter of 2016-17 appears to be in its final death throes.

In terms of depression, this winter has been bleaker than open mic night at an Emily Dickinson poetry reading.

“I heard a fly buzz when I died …”

Kill me NOW!

And for the record, I take complete umbrage with that weather item from last week that claimed that Spokane had finally had a day without snow on the ground.

Whoever put out that fake news sure didn’t take any measurements in my backyard. I’ve still got enough packed ice to host the Stanley Cup playoffs.

But here’s the thing. One of the joys of surviving the dirge of a Spokane winter is being able to brag about all the hardships we’ve had to endure.

To that end, I have compiled a short list of valid local winter statistics that, hopefully, will convince Smartasset to reconsider its rankings. If you have any more, please send them to me so I can compile the evidence.

• Spokane winters are so depressing that, by January, many affluent South Hill residents lose the will to load their fancy Italian espresso machines.
• Spokane’s winters are so long that, by February, KREM TV weathercaster Tom Sherry often ends his forecast sobbing, “Please forgive me. It’s not my fault!”
• Spokane winters are so slippery that East Sprague women of negotiable virtue have been known to trade their favors for deicer.
• Spokane winters are so cold that many citizens show up at City Council meetings just for the hot air.

Man, now that’s what I call depressing.