Campfyre Stories

I overslept by a half hour, which meant I missed the bus.  It also meant that I had to walk the two miles into work, which isn’t usually a problem, unless, you know, it’s 0 (that’s Z-E-R-O) degrees out, with a wind chill of -15.  Oh yeah, fun times.  Add to that the fact that the city, in its infinite wisdom determined that the *best* place to dump the plowed snow is ON THE SIDEWALK.  And then didn’t shovel or plow or blow or whatever the bridge…  or the sidewalk.

So I’m walking in…  and it’s cold out, but I’m dressed properly and I have all the accessories - hat, scarf, gloves, (headphones) - when some guy shouts to me in a scolding way, "Where.  Are.  Your.  Gloves?"  And I look down at the pale pink gloves that I’m wearing and hold up my hands to the guy.  "They’re pink," I said, not really having anything else to reply.  "Good girl," he said.

And it occurred to me that I see people every day who simply do not know how to dress for the cold.  A refusal to wear a hat, or forgetting their gloves at home or not owning scarf or eschewing layers as "too much work".  These people would be SCREWED if their car broke down on the way home or if any circumstances arose where they needed to be outside.  And it’s bigger even than simple ignorance, it’s really about a greater reliance on cars than I had really realized until now.

Even the people I know who KNOW how to dress for the cold usually don’t.  They save it until they’re going skiing or hunting or (what is wrong with these people???) winter camping.  Unless they are specifically in the wilderness or the country, they do not apply their knowledge of how to dress for cold weather, relying instead on their warm car and insufficient jacket.  And that’s all well and good, I suppose, until you consider that it’s always possible that you’ll run out of gas or something will go wonky in your engine or you’ll find yourself in a car accident.  And, my friends, at that point, in -15 degree weather, it would not take long for hypothermia to set in.

The reality here is that we ALL know how cold it is outside because we ALL have to go out in it to some extent.  You don’t look cool or tough for not wearing a hat or gloves with your fall-appropriate motorcycle jacket, you look like a cold IDIOT.  And, honestly, many of us wonder about your sanity.  You don’t look sexy showing off your midriff with your short top and your low-rise pants, you look like a cold IDIOT who’s attempting to be sexy, but, honey, I gotta tell you, frostbite isn’t sexy…  it’s gross.

I can forgive not wearing a scarf because, as Spawn explained to me, "It feels like being strangled."  I have the same problem with turtlenecks, so, ok, just bundle and layer up.  Lack of scarf is forgivable and it’s generally not covering skin anyway, just helping to insulate at the neck, but HATS, people, and GLOVES.  Even that brief 5 or 10 minutes a day of exposure can turn into more and you know it’s going to be unexpectedly.  Depending on the weather, that 5 or 10 minutes of exposure can be enough, especially if you don’t know how to act, react and dress in cold weather.

Clearly, far too many people DON’T.

But kudos to the ones who do.  Probably you’ll live through the winter.