What do you get when you put 17 strangers in puffy jackets and hats on a hill, buried under 4 inches of snow at 9 p.m. and give them sleds?

Well, smiles, for one thing. Smiles and an appreciation for other human beings.

Especially at night when you can’t see anyone, and especially when everyone is in enough clothes to conceal any possibility of identification except by voice and stature. You never see anyone's face -- you only hear their laughter. Race, age, maturity -- none of it matters when you’ve all turned into children.

Now why is that?

Theory Number 1: Sledding is a child’s idea of fun, and the fact that we aren’t children anymore makes us all giddy and ridiculous. While the majority of the town is safe in their homes watching the snow fall from a safe distance, those crazy of us decide to drive through it with the sole intention of sliding on a piece of plastic down a hill over, and over, and over, and over…

Theory Number 2: It isn’t the sledding so much as the snow. People who would normally be brats, or who would be intimidating, or aloof, become giddy and ridiculous because the snow puts everyone in a strange sort of trance, and gives them all good moods. Even if you say you hate the snow, you can’t help but get excited that this white fluffy stuff falling from the sky makes a better snowman than it does paving material.

Whether it unites us all using the child inside us, or against the common enemy of shivers down our backs, snow just has this way of being. You can say you hate the snow all you want, but I think we all know there’s some part of you that can’t resist making footprints in the pristine untouched stretches. I mean, come on. The snow’s wasted if it just sits there and melts, instead of being used as a snowman, or a sledding path, or being trudged through as proof that someone was out there enjoying it.