There's an odd phenomenon that I've noticed since moving to the Midwest. It's a peculiarly masochistic reflex that seems to afflict in a large portion of the population. It usually rears its head during a conversation with a stranger, particularly in the autumn months following a mild summer. It goes something like this:

You: It sure was a nice summer this year.

Stranger: Yes, it certainly was. But I'm sure that we'll be punished for it. We're bound to have a nasty winter.

It's as if people feel guilty for indulging in an entire season of warm-but-not-inutterably-hot temperatures, and feel that they should be punished for it by enduring an inutterably-cold-so-that-lots-of-people-die-from-exposure winter.

Could this be yet another manifestation of the Recovering Catholic Guilt Complex Syndrome?