If It's November, It Must Be Cold!
There are two things I hate- being hung from a ladder by my thumbs and cold weather. This article is about the latter. (To learn more about the first, you can read my brother Randy's latest book, "12 Easy Steps To Torturing Your Little Brother". There you will learn why my thumbs are longer than my index fingers.)
When people hear that I was born and raised in Michigan they assume that I ski, ice fish, and love to run around naked in the cold outdoors. There is nothing farther from the truth. For even when the temperature here in North Carolina drops below 60 degrees, I begin to shiver. This afternoon when I made the comment about hating winter a friend turned to me and commented, "You should be use to it". Everytime I hear that statement my blood pressure is raised 30 points. That is when I begin my barrage of questions: "Why do you think I don't live there anymore?" "Why do you think I live in the south?" "Why do you think I wear two pairs of long johns under my pants in the middle of wintertime, even when I'm in the shower?"
As a child my parents always had a hard time getting me out of bed in the morning. This was especially true when the forcast was for "cold" (which in Michigan was every month except July). My parents thought I was just lazy. Ok, that was true too. But besides that I hated to get out of my warm bed which was covered in twelve quilts and 6 blankets. My Pop would eventually toss a pan full of ice cubes in my bed. This cruel and unusual torture forced me to exit my hibernation as I threw on four pair of winter coats over my snowsuit pajamas and ran down the steps to the living room. Before I reached the main floor, I would grab a sleeping bag, turn the thermostat up to 110 degrees, and huddled over a heat register (My Pop never could understand how our heat bill could be $1000/month when he would always keep the thermostat turned down to 68 degrees). There in my warm camp my Momma would serve me my breakfast, hand me my toothbrush and my clothes for the day. I could eat breakfast, brush my teeth, and change clothes without leaving the warmth of my haven. Every morning I would start to shiver as I started thinking about that cold frozen Michigan air that I would soon face as I dashed to the sound of the school bus blowing it's horn. I cringed as I opened the door and started to take the first of those 83 steps to the waiting yellow frozen Popsicle. No wonder I hated school. )I had a solution but my father would not build the heated walkway from the house to the road.)
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