It's cold enough to freeze the pee in your urethra

The radio woke me at 7 a.m., and my eyes were still closed when I heard the DJ say, "It's -3 outside, but the windchill makes it feel like -25. It doesn't look like it'll warm up much, either." I groaned and rolled up tighter in my bedsheets. I was wrapped up like a poorly-cooked, lukewarm burrito, shivering in a primitive attempt to keep warm. I could have been scheduled to go to work, school, or a concentration camp. They all seemed equally terrifying, because they all required me to go outside.

My apartment is usually too warm. The few old ladies who live in the building prefer their apartments to be as steamy as a sauna full of farts, but they can't complain until the building manager comes in at 9, so before then, my radiator is cold and dead. My apartment has huge windows, which only adds to the chill in the winter. The cold air sneaks through the holes in the window insulation, chilling the entire apartment by the time I wake up each morning.

I need hot cocoa, but there's no time. I need a long, hot shower, but there's no time. I need a plane ticket to California, but my fussy boss won't let me do interviews and submit my work by e-mail each day. Life's a bitch, and I wouldn't mind so much if the bitch weren't so damn cold.

Getting out of bed was the hardest thing I've had to do all year. No joke. I imagine this level of difficulty will be challenged come February, when the windchill hits -60 and I'm literally frozen inside my bed by a thick layer of ice. As I hid in bed, fearing the cold air outside - the mere thought of which was turning my skin blue - I wished for an accidental fire in my apartment. Not a big one, just a little one that could be put out with a fire extinguisher. I stared at the smoke detector on the ceiling, praying for it to go off. Unfortunately, I think the smoke detector was frozen. Go figure.

The act of getting out of bed was made tougher by the fact that it was Martin Luther King Day, and I knew students had no school. I used to be a student. Unfortunately, the real world doesn't stop to commemorate civil rights. Thinking about Martin Luther King made me think about how nice it would be if I were in Atlanta. I'd give up all my teeth (and look exactly like the rest of the people in the south) if I could be somewhere warm. I'd sit in a rackety shanty house with six huge slobbering dogs and a pregnant wife in the kitchen cooking eggs while smoking a cigarette (just like the rest of the people in the south) if I could be somewhere warm.

Unfortunately, I wasn't somewhere warm. I was at work in Minnesota. Winter is in full swing, and the cold air follows you everywhere, haunting you like a ghost that's been hiding in the freezer all day eating popsicles. It's warm at work, but I still feel a chill up my spine. As long as I can see out the window, I feel cold. Only when I close the shade do I warm up.

People in the midwest like to brag about the cold weather, but I'm not so sure I fit in. I've been in Minnesota my entire life, but I'm still not the least bit used to the cold. Sometimes I wonder if my parents adopted me from some southern family, and never told me. It's something to ponder as I sit in my warm office, shivering as if I were swimming laps in the Mississippi River. I'm sure I'll brag about the cold weather again come spring, but for now, I'm whimpering like a sissy and wishing for a heat wave.

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Reader Comments

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Kate Yo      Dec 31, 1969 • 4:00pm   PFFFT! -3? What are you complaining about? It was -40 the other day, sans the wind. That\'s good ol\' NH for ya! TractorInc      Dec 31, 1969 • 4:00pm   When your boogers freeze, that\'s when it\'s finally cold enough. And I freaking love it. Jojo      Dec 31, 1969 • 4:00pm   Man up you pussy. Didn\'t you play hockey as a kid? Its not even that bad, the wind chill is only when STRONG gusts of wind kick up, you\'ll have breaks in between. Katers      Dec 31, 1969 • 4:00pm   Man, I wish I was back in Florida. That eighty degree weather I had there a few weeks ago rocked my world. Instead, I am here in Superior, where it\'s so cold that my coat crinkles and cracks when I walk outside. Brrrr. Dax in MO      Dec 31, 1969 • 4:00pm   I feel for ya man, cold sucks. Jennifer      Dec 31, 1969 • 4:00pm   Cheers from Key Largo, FL. Oh, got to go left my jet ski running outside. In your face, Paul.

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