This week, as millions of Texans were left without power and water as temperatures dropped to record lows, one man said no—not me. Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night would keep Ted Cruz from flying to Mexico for a vacation with his family. The rest of us are left to self-soothe. With curses.

  1. May you wait in line outside the only open grocery store for four hours only to find that there is no food left, save a Pop-Tart that slipped under some shelving. May the Pop-Tart be the weird cherry flavor. May you buy it, cut it into quadrants, and eat it over two days.
  2. May you realize that the only gloves you own are the porous Cinderella-style ones from your Halloween costume.
  3. May you record yourself making a snow angel for the first time in your life only to realize that you’re lying on your neighbor’s dog’s frozen deposits. —Forrest Wilder
  4. May you forget yourself and drink a glass of the spooky tap water without thinking. May you get the runs. Mid-flush, may your toilet shudder and cease to operate.
  5. May snow slip off an overhang as you pass underneath it, nailing you right on your noggin while you’re heading outside to pee.
  6. May you make direct eye contact with your neighbor during your yard pee.
  7. May you drink some water made from melted icicles only to learn from TikTok that icicles contain “roof poop.”
  8. May you (like Katy Vine, patron saint of reptiles) hold your child’s desert lizard against your body for several days, lest it get too cold to live.
  9. May you spend days cultivating a “warm room” in your home when your power goes out, then lose any heat you’ve garnered when you accidentally leave the door open for ten seconds.
  10. May you walk a mile in the ice to a hotel restaurant to get a warm meal. May you discover upon arrival that they’re only serving small, lukewarm, overpriced bowls of fettuccine Alfredo. May you order two. —Christopher Hooks
  11. May you set out to find the main water shutoff valve to your house. May the valve be buried in snow. May you find it after thirty minutes and realize that you don’t have the “curb wrench” (?!) required to turn it off. May the Cinderella gloves freeze to the valve as you try desperately to turn it with your hands.
  12. May you attempt to do the indoor tent thing only to remember that your tent requires you to create tension by driving stakes into the ground. May you weep while you try to push the tent stakes into the carpet.
  13. May you see on Twitter, as you shiver even though you are wearing every garment that you own, that your senator has left you for dead and fled to Mexico. May the rage warm you from within for only two minutes.