This week's column:Never too early to fall into winter

You may have noticed that the days have started getting darker and colder, and yet for some reason your drawers are still full of tank tops and bathing suits. This is because you're in a very profound form of denial and -- like the residents of Buffalo, N.Y. -- will soon leave your house without so much as a windbreaker and walk directly into a 6-foot snow bank, not to be discovered until you're thawed out by archaeologists in the year 7012.

Yes, despite the odd 70-degree day, winter is bearing down on us. This is why I spent my vacation last week preparing my household for that unavoidable eventuality, as humans have been doing for centuries. We're just like the Pilgrims in that regard, if the Pilgrims had needed to figure out which screens went into what windows after they removed their air conditioners.

So with that fresh in my mind, I thought I would offer up the following winter preparation checklist. Like the squirrels foraging for nuts in between their attacks on park rangers, you are not ready for winter unless you've done each of the following:

For the rest of this week's AT LARGE by Peter Chianca, click here.