Humor

10 Reasons Why the Cold Weather Is No Longer My Friend

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1. The constant nipple protrusion.

When the temperature drops, my hi-beams come on. For hours at a time. And with an intensity that is mildly frightening. Some of my shirts are so lacerated at pec level that it looks like Edward Scissorhands dropped by for a drunken game of Twister. On the positive side, with these diamond nubs going on, you could put me on one of those slot-racer things from my childhood and I would never fly off the tracks on the sharp curves. (“Go, Speed Racer, go!”)

2. The inverse reaction a bit further south.

Although I might be running around with Ginsu knives sticking out of my chest, the reverse is transpiring with the twig and berries. Mr. Happy wants to be someplace warm, and apparently that place is back inside my body. This makes things very difficult to find when nature calls. I’m tired of going on a scavenger hunt in Nutbush City Limits. (It never hurts to include a Tina Turner reference in whatever you are doing. Trust me.)

3. The nightly charbroiling.

I understand that the heater needs to run all night or we will die, frozen in our beds, not discovered until the Spring Thaw when the sheriff knocks on the door to see why we ain’t paid our light bill. But I don’t understand why the process of heating has to suck all the moisture out of your body, leaving you as nothing more than a burnt-out husk trapped under 7 layers of Aunt Jethrine’s special afghans, too dehydrated to call for help.

4. The lip-splitting and tongue-cracking.

If you do manage to somehow survive the night, your mouth probably won’t, especially if you have gas heating. Your lips will be criss-crossed with deep, blood-filled ravines, and your tongue will feel like you’ve been shoving it in a cotton bale all night, looking for love in all the wrong places. Do not try to roll your tongue around in search of the one remaining drop of saliva in your mouth. You risk losing a layer of tongue skin if it comes in contact with some of the more treacherously arid parts of your cheeks. Instead, calmly and patiently crawl your way to the nearest source of fresh water, even if it’s the pet bowl, and then drink 5 gallons of it.

5. The extra layers of clothing.

I already have more than my share of poundage, thank you very much. I don’t really relish adding bulky sweaters and coats and mufflers and circus tents, making me look like I should be floating in the sky with “Goodyear” on my side. Or having people start parking their cars next to me, thinking they finally found the Super Bowl.

And seriously, how is one supposed to drive a car when your arms are sticking straight out to the sides of your body and you can’t lower them? Use my tongue to steer the wheel? And have it snap off because it’s so brittle, leaving me speechless and immobile at the intersection whilst other people honk at me and yearn for my demise? This is not one of the dreams that I scribbled in my prepubescent diary, back when I still had hope for a bright future.

6. Waiting decades for your car to heat up.

Why even bother to turn the heater on? You won’t even feel the first feeble bits of warmth trickling out of the vents until you’ve already been at work for two hours. And the snooty people with the remote-start cars, drinking hot cocoa in the comfort of your house until it’s time to slip into the sauna of your deluxe vehicle, wearing flip-flops and shorts? There’s a special place in the satanic underworld for your kind. Luckily, you’re already used to constant heat so you’ll do just fine.

(Special shout-out to whatever god decided it was an acceptable thing for ice to adhere to the windows of motor vehicles, ice that cannot be easily removed even if a chainsaw is involved: I no longer believe in your benevolence and you should unfriend me on all forms of social media.)

7. The complete morons on the icy roads.

Dear Stupid Fools That Don’t Understand That There Must Be Speed Adjustments When the Ground Is White: You know you’re going to end up in the ditch. We’re all aware of this. So why don’t you just go ahead and pile into the ditch in front of your house, so you can wait comfortably inside your dwelling for the tow truck, and the rest of us can have a decent chance of getting to work on time. Thanks.

8. The Flu That Will Not Die.

You can use all the hand sanitizer you want, but if you work in a building with other people, like most of us do, you are going to get sick. Repeatedly. Because you’re in a soup of germs. You’re going to keep passing the same crud back and forth until you just want to claw your face. So just brace yourself for it. Go to Sam’s, buy the bulk crates of TheraFlu and tissue, and prepare for the skin on your nose to be in shreds for the next 3 months.

9. The piercing, mind-searing, soul-shattering wind.

It never stops. Ever. This is why some people start talking to themselves, commit odd crimes, and then spend the rest of their lives under heavy sedation. Or as the CEO of a major corporation. Same profile, different tax bracket.

10. The pale, pasty skin and the frizzy, uncontrollable, static-electricity hair.

What’s this? You think you just spotted the Abominable Snowman in your bathroom? Honey, put down the phone and quit trying to call Oprah for guidance. That’s you. Yes, it is. Seriously. Raise your right hand. See how the Yeti in the mirror just did the same thing? This is the image that you are presenting to the world. Now, now, don’t cry. It’ll be okay. Fix yourself a nice hot toddy and then we’ll talk about it once my car warms up in a few days and I can come console you. Just don’t touch anything metal or the electrical backlash will whack you unconscious for two hours. And your tongue will snap off…

 

Previously published. Slight modifications made. Please excuse the now-dated reference to “the flu”, a relatively benign happenstance when compared to this wretched Covid mess. We were innocent, once…

 

Cleo the Cat: “Why is my water bowl empty?”

 

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68 replies »

  4. Wow!! Thats amazing our opinions are almost the same!!!!!!!! Could you also go check out my teams blog we r just simple 8th graders trying to express our views! tsms8std.wordpress.com
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    • Forget “no longer”—cold weather was NEVER my friend. Having grown up in California, I’ve had to endure decades of winter reports from relatives there—“Oh it’s cold here too. One day last week we had to turn the heater on in the pool.”
      But this week’s family call was all debate on the merits of leaving windows open so you don’t die of Covid vs leaving heat on so you don’t freeze to death. That’s when I mentioned that temps here in Italy are in the 70s this week. Can you say schadenfreude?

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    • Jiya: I’ll certainly go check things out!

      Barb: Go ahead, rub it in with the Italian angle. To be fair, though, I was never really bothered by cold weather until about the age of 50, which is also when my metabolism went belly up. Growing old is not for the weak…

      obbverse: Your multi-lingual capabilities are stunning… 😉

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  5. Remote-starters were invented in Canada, where the car heaters are robust and scrapers are given away as freebies with a set of new snow tires. 😉 Can’t help you with the high beams (heavy t-shirt under your fleece?) or nut bushes, but I recommend a light-weight parka. No need to waddle, arms sticking out like a fat scarecrow. As to those wingnut drivers, crate them, car and all (don’t forget to put in some litter, water and kibble), and send them up here. We’ll let them loose on an ice road, teach them the meaning of life according to minus Celsius, and require of them humility before the Grand Snowflake. Some people just need a proper education. 😉

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    • You know, that’s a GREAT idea, with the sending of the idiots to Negative Celsia. I’ll get with my staff and we’ll come up with a lovely Relocation Program to get things going. [Sounds of flipping through my notes.] Let’s see, there are about 20 million people in Texas alone that would qualify for this program. I trust you have the accommodations in order? Text me with the logistics… 😉

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  10. When I was a child I loved winter. The frosty days, red noses and squeaky snow. Cuddling up by the fire with a hot chocolate warming my toes. I grew up. And my cuddling is done with a much stronger beverage but I still like the chocolate.

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  11. Pingback: Seriously NOT Serious.. | sparksfromacombustiblemind

  12. I admit that I fell off my chair chortling wildly, and Ziggy had to call 911 to come to get my ponderous ass back up again. He’s now hiding under the sofa pondering the fate that allowed a crazy person to rescue him… I hijacked your wonder words again and have flung them out for the world to share because we all need more laughter right now and this post (retread or not) is so funny I can’t catch my breath properly.

    https://sparksfromacombustiblemind.com/2021/02/21/seriously-not-serious/

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    • Poor Ziggy. I’m sure at some point he’ll be speaking to his lawyer and a subsequent cease-and-desist order will be issued to prevent me from posting posts that have you fall off your post. Pets are lovely, until it comes to the point of litigation. Cleo is always taking surreptitious photos of her perceived outrages at Bonnywood and then whispering quietly on her cell phone to someone, somewhere…

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  13. “And the snooty people with the remote-start cars, drinking hot cocoa in the comfort of your house until it’s time to slip into the sauna of your deluxe vehicle, wearing flip-flops and shorts? There’s a special place in the satanic underworld for your kind.”
    Oh no you didn’t! I have one of those cars, but you can bet your sweet bippy that I am not drinking hot cocoa in the comfort of my house until it’s time to…yada, yada, yada. And yes, I know I’m going to Hell….but for reasons far worse than having a remote-start car. I didn’t even know I had it until I was fiddling with the remote and thought, “wonder what this does?” Oh shit! It starts the car!
    And, I know how to drive, and walk and slide on the snow and ice. I learned early.
    (I love the peanut and berries reference).

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    • Hold up. You have a fancy remote-start vehicle and didn’t know it at first?

      That sounds like something I would do. It took me a while to realize that the back seats fold completely flat in my SUV, thus allowing me to increase the real estate and therefore fit a small couch into the damn thing. I had no idea, until I found this little lever thingy that made the magic work.

      As for going to Hell, I’m sure I’ve got a full-access pass. Hey, maybe we could be roomies?

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      • I didn’t get much of a lesson on how to do anything with that car…but she’s PURTY. I also discovered that my back seats will fold flat, but I don’t know how to do it. It’s not an SUV, but I guess that would come in handy, if I ever went anywhere and bought anything, or decided I needed to dispose of a body or something. Bwahahahahaha!

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        • That whole ‘shrinking” twig and berries thing is one of the reasons I fell off my chair when reading this. I hadn’t thought of Seinfeld and George (although I did see that episode) because to me? George will always be that nasty rapist guy from “Pretty Woman”. I never did like that actor afterward, and the thought of his twig and berries seeking asylum in warmer part of the body? Served the creep right! I wonder if that’s painful… Brian?

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            • We’ll have to see if he answers Laurel. I’ve found most men are uncomfortable talking about ‘shrinkage’…like it could become fact just because they mentioned it. That was part of the skit in the “Seinfeld’ episode wasn’t it? LOL

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            • Oh, it doesn’t bother me to talk about it. It just happens and you deal with it. For me, it’s usually not painful, physically. (Although there have been a few times when it was extremely cold and it felt like the berries were trying to climb back into my inner core. That’s certainly a discomfiting sensation.) But psychologically painful? Yes. It’s like checking your bank account and finding you have far few resources than you thought you did. Nobody likes to discover that…

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              • And now we’ve thoroughly beaten that horse to death… O_o Women can’t really equate to the whole twig and berry phenomenon…there’s just no comparison that I can think of. Of course, when it’s extremely cold and one doesn’t adequately cover ‘the girls’, that diamond tip thing can hurt like the dickens. The prudent woman puts several layers over her headlights though..

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  16. We have the windy, dry, shocking frizz… we even have ice on the windshields… thankfully no snow!!

    I have learned that a Prius takes a whole lot longer to defrost the windshield than a regular car. The gas engine says “we’re not moving, engage electric” the electric engine sits there quietly, doing nothing. Hard to get the ice to melt or the window to unfog without heat… cant get heat without the engine warming up, engine won’t warm up unless you go, cant go til you can see… and Do-Si-Do your partner😘

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    • Interestingly enough, your Prius situation sounds just like one I had with my 1973 Super Beetle that I owned in the mid-80s. The heat and the defroster wouldn’t work unless the car was moving (and it was designed this way ON PURPOSE), which made things tricky when the damn Beetle was covered in ice. I remember many cold mornings when I would blindly drive in a circle in the apartment parking lot until things started to melt. Fun, it was not…

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  17. I guess there’s no humidifiers sold near Bonnywood. Who would guess global warming can bring such coldness to the south? “The nearest source of fresh water, even if it’s the pet bowl”. LOL. That’s so true. When one’s thirsty, one can drink just about anything. My favorite line of all, “when your arms are sticking straight out to the sides of your body and you can’t lower them”. I actually had this experience when I was young, living close to the very cold and dry Gobi Desert (close to Siberia). That’s before we could afford goose down jacket. We could only don thick layers of fluffed cotton, which are so thick that your arms are practically sticking out from your body, and your legs would never touch each other again until the next spring.

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    • There’s really not much need for humidifiers around here, as it’s generally quite humid the vast majority of the year. But you’re right, I might need to invest in one for those rare times when the gas heat is running non-stop and my entire body is drying into a husk of dessication and dissatisfaction.

      When I was a wee bairn and heading out to play in the snow, I actually liked all those layers of clothes. You could fall down and roll around without getting hurt, what with all that padding. Of course, once everything started getting wet and clammy, it wasn’t quite as much of a thrill…

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    • Actually, I’ve probably got one around here somewhere, but finding it would require me to get off my ass and go bang around in the attic, and that’s not happening unless there’s a medical emergency of some kind… 😉

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  20. Your blog never ceases to shine light on what we are all thinking but not everyone says. Thank you for having such a factual and at times even humorous read. You have my follow .

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  25. I’m always cold, so having a remote start is a necessity, especially up here in the Great White North. I also use my seat heater right into May. Can I have my hot toddy now–it’s got to be 5 o’clock somewhere dammit!

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    • I will say I’m a big fan of the seat-heaters. I don’t have them in my own car (it’s a relatively ancient 2006 RAV4), but Partner has them in his fancy hotrod, and I punch that percolator button every time I’m a passenger in said vehicle. (Well, at least when it’s cold. I’m not a freak, despite what the tabloids say.) Of course, this lovely warmth means that I’m often asleep by the time we reach our destination, which somewhat annoys Partner. But hey, HE’S the one who takes great pride in pointing out the percolator button, so he shouldn’t get out of sorts if I punch it and then drift away… 😉

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