What do you call a guy who wears shorts outside when the temperature is -3? An optimist.
When I see someone wearing shorts in cold weather, I go up to them and say, “You’re an optimist, aren’t you?” They smile. They nod. They like being acknowledged.
And, quite frankly, they’re an optimist. At least in my mind anyway.
You’re either crazy to dress and expose your skin at temperatures so low or you have a profound faith in your body that it can deal with and accommodate searingly cold weather. I don’t want to call people crazy (though you could do it with your tongue in cheek and they might get the humor), so I opt out by mentioning their optimistic view of life.
Seriously though, extreme cold requires adjustment. This becomes noticeable in latitudes north of Interstate 80 in the United States. You live up there, you need warm clothes during the winter. You must adapt to survive.
Frigid days are one reason people in the north move more quickly than people living in the south. They’re going to die if they don’t. Watch a person in Milwaukee move towards his car in January and you can bet it will be with more speed than someone moving to their car in Fort Lauderdale. It’s cold, and they want to survive when that Canadian air is blasting across Lake Michigan at 27 miles per hour.
You prepare for the arctic early. Some days in October or November, perhaps December, things start to change in your closet. You wear a short sleeve shirt, and think to yourself, “I’m not putting that on again for the next four months.” Or longer. Time to move it to the spare closet and bring out the warmer apparel.
Slowly, week-by-week, you put those summers clothes into hibernation. Just like us mammals, clothes need to go into a deep slumber for multiple months before perking up in the spring.
It’s an odd process because there are hiccups every year. You think the really cold stuff has stuck around for good, then suddenly it’s 62-degrees and it feels like 80-degrees after it’s been 30 for four days. You get those misleading indicators that it’s time to hunker down, when weather is just messing with you.
When it hits fully, then it’s time for the transition. Bring out the sweatshirts to wear around the house. Slide on the long johns. Pull out the fleece-lined pants. Check on the stocking caps and boots in the front hall closet. Make sure you know where the thick jackets are.
Everybody is different in their approach. There are the optimists, noted above, who swagger around on 19-degree days, the wind hauling its way across the Costco parking lot, pretending cold weather doesn’t exist. Ya gotta respect their optimism or their bullheadedness in pretending that winter is just a fantasy propagated by the media.
“If you don’t act like it’s cold, it won’t be cold” seems to be their motto. I get their perspective. I want to believe in it, and will slide on flip flops occasionally for a quick jaunt to the supermarket when it’s 29-degrees out. It keeps me optimistic, defeating the cold, but that hot shower back home sure feels good afterwards.
When I see someone wearing shorts in cold weather, I go up to them and say, “You’re an optimist, aren’t you?” They smile. They nod. They like being acknowledged.
And, quite frankly, they’re an optimist. At least in my mind anyway.
You’re either crazy to dress and expose your skin at temperatures so low or you have a profound faith in your body that it can deal with and accommodate searingly cold weather. I don’t want to call people crazy (though you could do it with your tongue in cheek and they might get the humor), so I opt out by mentioning their optimistic view of life.
Seriously though, extreme cold requires adjustment. This becomes noticeable in latitudes north of Interstate 80 in the United States. You live up there, you need warm clothes during the winter. You must adapt to survive.
Frigid days are one reason people in the north move more quickly than people living in the south. They’re going to die if they don’t. Watch a person in Milwaukee move towards his car in January and you can bet it will be with more speed than someone moving to their car in Fort Lauderdale. It’s cold, and they want to survive when that Canadian air is blasting across Lake Michigan at 27 miles per hour.
You prepare for the arctic early. Some days in October or November, perhaps December, things start to change in your closet. You wear a short sleeve shirt, and think to yourself, “I’m not putting that on again for the next four months.” Or longer. Time to move it to the spare closet and bring out the warmer apparel.
Slowly, week-by-week, you put those summers clothes into hibernation. Just like us mammals, clothes need to go into a deep slumber for multiple months before perking up in the spring.
It’s an odd process because there are hiccups every year. You think the really cold stuff has stuck around for good, then suddenly it’s 62-degrees and it feels like 80-degrees after it’s been 30 for four days. You get those misleading indicators that it’s time to hunker down, when weather is just messing with you.
When it hits fully, then it’s time for the transition. Bring out the sweatshirts to wear around the house. Slide on the long johns. Pull out the fleece-lined pants. Check on the stocking caps and boots in the front hall closet. Make sure you know where the thick jackets are.
Everybody is different in their approach. There are the optimists, noted above, who swagger around on 19-degree days, the wind hauling its way across the Costco parking lot, pretending cold weather doesn’t exist. Ya gotta respect their optimism or their bullheadedness in pretending that winter is just a fantasy propagated by the media.
“If you don’t act like it’s cold, it won’t be cold” seems to be their motto. I get their perspective. I want to believe in it, and will slide on flip flops occasionally for a quick jaunt to the supermarket when it’s 29-degrees out. It keeps me optimistic, defeating the cold, but that hot shower back home sure feels good afterwards.
