Winter Survival Tips, A PAMPHLET

[snurri]

For those who are not aware, here in the Northern Hemisphere, it is winter. I say this because it seems that many of you are NOT aware. Here in Minnesota it is a daily discovery for many, like sheep who are startled to see the sun rising in the morning, and astonished by all the green stuff in the fields.* "It's COLD out there!" people like to say, and I will grant you those four words upon entering heated confines, although I myself prefer to go with a simple "Brr." In extreme cold it may be necessary to verbally acknowledge the temperature in order to shake it off. Neither of the two above variations requires a response from the hearer; a nod or a sympathetic smile is courteous, but not mandatory. This is how we roll. Meteorologists are permitted to talk about the weather at greater length, but considering that meteorologists are witches who manipulate the weather and feed false information to the public, there is little point in listening to them. THE SENSIBLE THING TO DO is to say very little about the weather, lest you be mistaken for a meteorologist.

IF YOU ARE NOT a meteorologist, and you feel an urge to expound upon the cold, to detail how cold your ears are, how you thought the windchill was going to kill you, or how the snow stuck to your shoes, YOU MUST LEARN. Winter is cold. Ice is slippery. Also, water is wet, speed kills, and Godzilla is angry. If you are a recent immigrant from warmer climes, you have a grace period of two winters; after that, you are no longer allowed to remark with wonder about the heaps of snow lining the sidewalk or the fact that, gosh, driving on snow and ice is sorta tricky. THE SENSIBLE THING TO DO is to swallow your rage against the weather until such time as a meteorologist crosses your path, at which time you may "slip" on a patch of ice and decapitate them with a snow shovel. The authorities generally look the other way in such cases. Be sure, however, that it is a silver snow shovel, or you will be haunted by the meteorologist's disembodied head, which will hover outside your bedroom window at night, singing "Summer Breeze" and vomiting needles.

FURTHER, if your vanity does not permit you to dress for the weather, you have already forfeited any right to complain about it. This is Protestant country, after all, and Protestants are hard people. (Look up the Salem Witch trials if you don't believe me.) If you will not wear the many layers of shapeless-but-practical winter garb of our culture, swaddling yourself in long underwear, boots, scarves, hats, hoods, and coats that give supermodels the appearance of being well-fed, then the merest shiver from you will become an invitation to rebuke. "You shoulda dressed warmer," we will say, in sober, disapproving tones, as if preemptively mourning your death by exposure. And you will deserve it. (The disapproving tones, not the death by exposure. Protestants are hard people, but--witches and meteorologists aside--not bloodthirsty.) Particularly if you will not sensibly accessorize for fear of "messing up" your hair. UM. Today, with the windchill, it is 15 degrees below zero by our quaint American temperature scale. Be a glam guy or a tough girl if you like, but if that is your choice then your suffering is your own business and no one else's. THE SENSIBLE THING TO DO is to shave your head, wear a hat, and install a personal generator to store all the static electricity you generate against the day when the meteorologists take out all the power plants with tornadoes and try to seize the government.

FINALLY, do not watch the local TV weather-persons. They are, in most cases, meteorologists, and therefore the enemy. Their subliminal messages will convince you to buy SUVs and crash them in the ditch for their highlight reels. Buy your own thermometer, ride the bus, and do not trust people who talk to you about the weather.

*Yes, this is an allusion to Douglas Adams. If you didn't catch it DON'T BLAME ME.

Comments

[rnb.livejournal.com]

I miss winter.

[snurri.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure whether to believe you or not.

[rnb.livejournal.com]

No, I really do. Philadelphia has no idea what winter's all about.

[snurri.livejournal.com]

So your meteorologists are fakes, then.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I missed the cold a lot when I lived in California. People said, "Oh, you're idealizing it." And I said, "I miss the way you can't keep the floor clean around the door for more than a day because of all the sand and salt. I miss the way you have to bathe in moisturizer and still itch all over. I miss the way you can go out for dinner in wool socks and boots and still never get your toes warmed between coming in from the car and going back out again. I miss the way you have to curl your fingers into the palms of your gloves because they are too cold in their pockets." And those people said, "Okay, you're crazy, but you're not idealizing it."

[the-flea-king.livejournal.com]

Wait, wait a second--Godzilla is angry?

Is that what that's all about?

But seriously?

Their subliminal messages will convince you to buy SUVs and crash them in the ditch for their highlight reels.

Genius.

[snurri.livejournal.com]

It has been suggested that, on occasion, Godzilla is merely constipated. However, no one has volunteered to test this theory.

lol!

[ombriel.livejournal.com]

Having lived in the lower pennisula of Michigan for part of my childhood, I'm familiar with cold and snow and ice. But I don't think that part of MI has it as 'bad' as you Minnesotans do.

But it is positively amusing to see how southern Indiana unravels when it gets down to 25 and there's a 1/2 inch of snow on the ground.

I miss piles and piles of snow.

Re: lol!

[snurri.livejournal.com]

Minnesotans love to laugh when a dusting hits, say, Texas, and everyone there slides all over the road and panics. But every year during the first snowfall here, about a third of the people on the Minnesota roads simply FORGET HOW TO DRIVE. It's exasperating.

I would ship you some snow, but the last time I did that the Postmaster General came to my house and made me do 1200 pushups.

Re: lol!

[jocelina.livejournal.com]

That guy is such a jerk.

Re: lol!

[snurri.livejournal.com]

I know! I kept telling him he wasn't a real general, but he just stepped on my head and called me "Private Pyle." So I buried his body in the snow.

Re: lol!

[jocelina.livejournal.com]

I learned the hard way last year that snow burials have their drawbacks come spring. :(

Re: lol!

[snurri.livejournal.com]

You can't convince me that Spring will ever come.

Re: lol!

[jocelina.livejournal.com]

Spring is a lie meteorologists tell their children.

Re: lol!

[snurri.livejournal.com]

Genius.

[mastadge.livejournal.com]

You go on about the weather so eloquently. Are you, perchance, a meteorologist?

Also: I love the cold. Even Minnesota cold.

[snurri.livejournal.com]

Witch! Witch!

Er, sorry. I mean OF COURSE NOT.

(Witch!)

[silk-noir.livejournal.com]

See, I am so thinking of not moving to Wisconsin now.

[snurri.livejournal.com]

They hunt meteorologists there.

[mabnyx.livejournal.com]

My boyfriend has suddenly and irrationally decided that he wants to move to Duluth. I should make him read this.

[snurri.livejournal.com]

The entire city of Duluth is a meteorologist fortress. I DO NOT RECOMMEND MOVING THERE.

[shaolingrrl.livejournal.com]

People here (SF Bay Area) forget how to drive in the *rain.*

I'm originally from Idaho and I miss winter, too, but it's a good thing the weather here isn't horribly cold--no one can afford the closet space for a winter wardrobe. I love colorful sweaters, though, and I never get a chance to wear them anymore.

Don't hate me because I'm warm.

(BTW, what would be an appropriate laxative for Godzilla?)

[snurri.livejournal.com]

No one hates you because you are warm. Well, except for the meteorologists. (God, am I getting tired of typing that word.)

When things get really bad for Godzilla he just eats a coffee shop or a confectionary. That usually helps him to work things out.

[msisolak.livejournal.com]

People in SoCal never learned to drive in the rain¹, because we only have it three or four times a year--and then it floods, until we reach seasonal critical landslide mass. (Obviously the rainclouds are wondering why the hell they are here and taking revenge until they are promised Minnesota which is Nirvana for a rain cloud.)

¹Except for horrified foreign exchange transplants from the Bay Area.

[dsgood.livejournal.com]

Pedantic correction: This is not Protestant country. Parts of Minnesota are Catholic.

And there are people who don't consider Lutherans Protestant.

[snurri.livejournal.com]

Sure; I was raised Catholic myself. But I think predominantly, still, this is Protestant-land. Culturally as well.

[bibliogrrl.livejournal.com]

I have told you how much I totally adore you, right? Because I do. I really really do.

I constantly have to stop myself, walking down the street, from yelling, "WHERE IS YOUR HAT?"

[snurri.livejournal.com]

Last year in Chicago I was yelled at by a man on the street. "Zip up your jacket!" he said. "It's cold!"

[bibliogrrl.livejournal.com]

He did not know you are from MN and therefore immune.

[rambleflower.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I occasionally get tempted to move there by the high concentration of all you cool people in Minneapolis, and then winter comes along and even you natives post about it so colorfully that I'm all, "Oh yeah; I really freakin' hate winter." And I'm glad I'm (paying out the nose in ridiculously high rents) here in the SF Bay Area.

[snurri.livejournal.com]

There are only about 5-10 days in the year when I am sincerely annoyed by winter. But it does constitute a seasonal lifestyle change, in many ways.

GOD that icon is cute.

[haddayr.livejournal.com]

I can talk about the cold for twenty minutes, quite cheerfully, with other folks waiting at a bus stop.

If you didn't know me, you would hate me.

[snurri.livejournal.com]

I doubt it. I would just think you were a mutant :-P