Things have already started. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

As we all try to wring the last bit of summer out of the season (even though summer technically goes on for two more weeks, but I’m willing to work with the colloquial definition here), the scourge has crept its way into conversation.

People are complaining about winter. Already.

Not one team had clinched a spot in baseball’s playoffs, and I saw moaning about a possibly harsh winter in my Facebook feed. Never mind that the meteorologists predicting this are probably the same ones who routinely miss snowstorms. That’s an inconvenient fact when snow alarmism is involved.

I have already had one friend tell me that I should just avoid them this winter if I don’t like to hear people complain about the weather. But why would I do that? If I don’t have some friends who complain about the weather, I wouldn’t get the chance to complain about people who complain about the weather.

This is not an indication that I love bad weather. Sometimes I do, sometimes I don’t. The days I can just relax and enjoy the beauty of the snow make for some of the best winter days. The days when I get stuck in the snow on my way home do not.

But I try not to waste my breath talking about how bad things are when it snows for one very simple reason. I can’t change the weather.

My pragmatic side dominates things when this topic comes up. Enough things in this world can raise my blood pressure. I try to keep things that I can’t control off of that list.

Besides, I have the good fortune of working at a place that will close when the weather gets bad, meaning I will never curse bad weather when it gets me a day of sleeping in and watching television. I know not everyone has that luxury and sympathize with those who get angry when they can’t take a day off when school is cancelled for their kids.

But the recent phenomenon didn’t even rise to the level of complaining because a snow storm disrupted your plans for the day. Like I said, the first pumpkin beers were barely on the shelf when this angst started to bubble up.

Complaining about weather that is actually happening is one thing, but complaining about a report that weather in the future might be bad – especially when predicting these kinds of things is horribly unreliable – makes absolutely no sense to me.

We have a chance to buy our Halloween candy seven weeks ahead of time, and some people want to worry because there are reports that think winter might be a bad one? It isn’t even Snuggie weather yet. Can’t we wait to freak out until we see a snowflake or maybe even some falling leaves?

Get outside and pour yourself a summer drink. We have a couple weeks left before fall officially starts. Watch some football. Carve a pumpkin. You have plenty of time before it’s appropriate to complain about snow.

Then I’ll tell you to knock it off and make some hot chocolate. Mother Nature doesn’t care what we think.