The Day After Tomorrow came yesterday. As a sunless Sunday revealed an Arctic expanse, one almost expected to see Jake Gyllenhaal scampering down Mt. Auburn St., pursued by a pack of roving wolves (or at least members of the Fox Club). But take a step back in time—Saturday had been even worse. Exam-burdened students familiar with the punishments of cold, white, unforgiving academics spent hours becoming acquainted with the trials of cold, white, unforgiving precipitation. Irish-literature students’ souls swooned slowly as they heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead.

Even before this blizzard buried all other news in the major Northeastern media outlets, as if a gift from the heavens to University President Lawrence H. Summers, this winter had been a hard, bitter season. Surely, though, this was no challenge the proud snowmen and snowwomen of our campus could not surmount. Surely students would live up to their predecessors’ sang froid and dash out into the freeze, defying nature.

And yet, according to a report in The Crimson last week, ice cream sales in the Square have decreased titanically with the onset of winter. When the going got tough, it seems, Harvard students found something better to do than feed themselves on delicious ice cream.

For shame.

When T.S. Eliot, Class of 1910, looked out of his soon-to-be-Eliot House window and saw an imposing icescape of Edwardian poetry, sparkling but frozen in its ways, did he shy away? No. After a few whiskeys in the offices of the Harvard Advocate, he sallied forth and ate the oppressive literary sundae whole, producing Four Quartets several hours later before indulging in a quick Rum Raisin nightcap.

Confronted by the chilly cone of imperial fascism 30 years later, did Franklin D. Roosevelt, Class of 1904, cower by a warm fire? Hardly. We would all be speaking German today if old FDR—also a former Crimson president—had feared leaving the safety of Adams House for the Rocky Road of a three-front war.

When Method Man, whose experiences with Crimson-tinted hypocrisy were well-chronicled in 2001’s How High, was prompted to scream for ice cream on Raekwon the Chef’s stunning solo debut seven years earlier, did he bounce to Brain Break? Of course not. The Shaolin soldier wasted no time before warning the world’s cool confectioners that “French vanilla, butter pecan, chocolate deluxe—even caramel sundaes—is getting touched and scooped in my ice cream trucks,” and the world is a better place for it.

Harvard students should drop everything to follow the example of these great forebears at once, with a cherry on top. The benefits of ice cream consumption in the winter months are at least as well-demonstrated as some other more controversial hypotheses mentioned recently on campus. Ice cream, for instance, is healthy, containing absolutely no fat or sugar. Eating ice cream in January or February is the only surefire way to vaccinate against frostbite—and who wants to get frostbite? And as many can attest, watching objects of desire dine on the mouth-melting treat—cone or cup—can offer indispensable insight into…well…let’s just say, fro-yo’s not the same. So hurry out, show the blizzard who’s the boss (you!), and celebrate the impending end of exams with some tasty ice cream today. We could all use a little chill pill.