"Giving February the Cold Shoulder"

This is dedicated to Todd Crabb who found this inspiring article and sent it to me. I've written one slightly similar, Grr...to February, and have tried to make a collection of literature that proves it's not just me More Proof. So, here's another that dives into exactly how I feel in February. Let's just say thank heavens it's MARCH! I'm so glad. So, here's the article to welcome in another month:

"When I walked out of my apartment this morning on my way to work, there was no mistaking the month. I felt that familiar sensation of dirty NYC slush creeping up my pant legs and heard the flippity-flap of wet denim on waterlogged shoes. Everywhere I looked I saw the dour faces of people, both rich and not-rich, all of whom looked like they had been standing in a Soviet-era potato line all day in the teeming rain. As I struggled to keep my umbrella right side out in the howling winds, my phone rang, and while I was trying to answer it, my phone and headphones fell into an icy puddle. My burrito bowl-to-go broke free of its soggy paper bag on a suicide mission, joining my personal electronics in their watery grave. At that point I couldn't blame it. As I write this, my feet are still wet, and will remain so for the rest of the day. Congratulations, February 2010. I hate your guts.

All Februaries are without a doubt, the Worst Months in any given Year. Unpronounceable. Cold. Gray. Barren. A dumping ground for feature films. The month when you have finally used up all the tasty frozen preserves that you slaved over in a burst of super green eco-energy last summer. Now all you have left is freezer-burned hamburger meat, and you couldn't care less. The whole month is like freezer-burned hamburger meat. Put some ketchup on it and choke it down.

Forgive me if this sounds cold weather-centric, but it is. I have never spent a single February in my life anywhere even remotely warm or conducive to normal human activities. I have no idea how you conduct your February business in places with things like "sunshine" or "cacti." Maybe you spend your February days being productive and harvesting rainbows. I really have no idea. But I'd like to point out that at this very moment my skin is literally translucent, like a fish that lives deep under the sea, beneath a rock that is located deep inside a cave.

It costs more to live per day in February than any other month because there are only 28 days across which to spread your expenses. Unless there are 29 days, which is just plain stupid. May God help you if you are a Leap Year baby, because you have to spend your whole life explaining why Leap Years exists in the first place, and the moment you try, you instantly become the most boring person in the room.

February makes you just want to give up. You could almost picture yourself coming to work in pajama bottoms. You know, the ones you were wearing when your kids were home with that stomach bug that they got from being in a tightly enclosed space with 25 other infectious mucus machines all day, because the weather was so bad that no one could go outside.

Nothing good happens in February. Nothing much happens at all, in fact. Punxsutawney Phil gets dragged out of his cozy tunnel on the second day of the month and suffers a groundhog heart attack on national television (unidentifiable to the casual viewer). It's all downhill from there.

Well, occasionally there's a big sporting event, and there's always that big President's Day White Sale. And okay, I'll give you Black History Month. But allow me to counter with National Hot Breakfast Month. Space shuttle disasters. National Children's Dental Health Month. The beheading of Mary, Queen of Scots. Pauly Shore's birthday (Feb. 1st, as if you didn't already know).

And thanks for trying, Local-Community-in-Which-People-Live, but your plan to keep us fit and entertained throughout February is not going to work. We can all pretend that we're having fun at your made up Ice Carnivals and Winter-Scapades, but let's look at the facts.

Fact: Don't try and trick me with a "Fest" in February. I see what you're trying to do. Nothing you can deep-fry and put on a stick is worth standing around in the blistering cold for. Not even Mars Bars.

Fact: I can make hot chocolate at home, only at home I can put delicious booze in it too.

Fact: Skating around and around those ice sculptures in a circle isn't going to make them any more interesting. Plus, it's cold enough to have ice sculptures. Enough said.

February also happens to be the month in which personal grooming habits cease to be a priority. There may be a slight uptick just prior to February 14th (more on that later), but after the anticlimax of Valentine's Day, after all the bon-bons are picked over and the new Valentine Dustbuster your husband gave you so that you could vacuum more efficiently lies dormant, everybody finally gives themselves permission to go to seed.

According to some sleazy sleaze-peddler, more people start extramarital affairs in February than any other month of the year. Well, no doubt. February makes you question everything you think you know about yourself and the people in your life. My husband, for example, suffers greatly in February when football season officially draws to a close. He doesn't experience the post-holiday blues, because he has playoff football to look forward to. And although he doesn't love the Super Bowl, he is willing to bear with all the "band wagon jumpers" and long, overly hyped commercial breaks to extract the last possible droplet of football juice from the season. He is even willing to explain that onside kick to your mother at the Super Bowl party you're having, if it means he can watch the rest of the game munching on her spicy homemade Chex Mix in relative silence.

Then the sadness comes. And it is a deep, long-lasting sadness that commences approximately three seconds after the game ends, and lasts until he receives a decent sunshine-related infusion of Vitamin D. Like, sometime in March. He stays up late the night-of, poring over football stats, analyzing his performance in his Fantasy "Keeper" League, thinking about the upcoming NFL Scouting Combine. And then he wakes up the next day in a fugue state, sighing deeply. Taking long, mournful showers. Thinking about growing his facial hair differently. Occasionally I find him quietly staring at me and he'll blurt out something like "Have you always had brown eyes?" And then the questions begin: "Who am I?" "Is there no end to man's capacity for cruelty?" "What if we lived on a boat?"

Thank God I'm so lovable.

Then of course, smack dab in the middle of the worst month, there's the worst, most made-up commemorative day ever. Valentine's Day. AKA: The-Day-When-People-Who-Don't-Get-Out-of-the-House-Much-Go-Out-for-a-Prix-Fixe-Dinner. Do I sound bitter? Can I even say the words Valentine's Day without a sneer in my voice? Answers: "yes," followed by a "no." Perhaps I have worked in one too many restaurants that offered a prix fixe on that very occasion.

And perhaps I have been burned in the past by my own oversized Valentine Expectations. Oh yes, I used to have those. Before I met and fell in love (sort of) with the man who presented me (breathless!) with a Tiffany ring box (unexpected!) on Valentine's Day one year. My mind raced! He seemed to be moving so fast! Was this what I really wanted? Did I really see us 10 years down the road, still together, thick as thieves, maybe even with kids?! We could think about that later. Just open the box and deal with the larger picture after The Big Moment…

Thank goodness that Moment never arrived. Contained within the box was a check written to me for 50 whole dollars. Of course, at the time, since he didn't actually have a checking account of his own (he was 30 years old), his Mom (who despised me) had to write it out to me. I guess it was her ring box too. I gave it back. The box, I mean. I kept the check, cashed it, paid my phone bill with it, and never thought about Valentine's Day again for the rest of my life. My actual husband and I pledged to each other an eternal rejection of this day. Instead we smugly smirk and gorge on non-heart-shaped chocolates that we bought for ourselves.

To be fair, that's probably what we would have been doing anyway. Because it's February. And there are only so many classic football games a person can bear to watch on NFL Network. And we're stuffed into our jeans like swollen sausages that you put on the grill and forgot to prick with a fork.

So Happy Birthday Pauly Shore, and R.I.P. dead gopher. No more cards or fruit kabob bouquets will be forthcoming from your old pal Sam Bee in 2011! Next year I'm going to be taking a knee on this one. On Jan. 31st, knock me (gently) on the head with a brick and wake me up sometime in March.

Actually, March is a bit of a tease, could you make it April? You know what, let's call it May and we're good. I'm really into Kite Day."

—Samantha Bee is a senior correspondent on "The Daily Show With Jon Stewart." Her first book, "I Know I Am, But What Are You?" (Gallery Books), will be released June 1.