Be prepared

The coke machine at work has stopped keeping the drinks cold. Warm Diet Coke. Yuk! Someone put a sign on the machine that reads: "Pop comes out warm, so plan ahead." It doesn't say the machine is broken or that service has been called or anyting like that. The note doesn't ask for a refund. It just warns others to "plan ahead".

Thanks to that good Minnesotan who put the note up -- someone who knows that the inevitability of winter is something that cannot be stopped, changed, or fixed. Complaining may relieve some anxiety, but in the end it will do no good. No, the only thing to be done about it is to prepare for it -- "plan ahead" so that you might bear it as well as you can.