I am soon tempted to call this room a garret, so cold is it up here. Even the little yellow violet I bought last week has chilblains, and the cat just walked by wearing earmuffs. Usually, when the mister is home (and he is often home mid-afternoon or earlier, even on workdays) I keep the door closed, but these temperatures make closure an absolute impossibility.
All of this reminds me of Sandy and me walking four miles (at least) to high school on days like this, wearing short shirtdresses and fishnet stockings (and not much else). Were we crazy? Who did we think we were impressing—tuna fishermen?
Mostly I think we did it because, as Tony Paradiso used to cruelly point out, Sandy and I were the only students in homeroom class who lived in apartment buildings. (Can you imagine spending your free time at school figuring out these sorts of statistics? Not me, boy. I would way rather be out in the courtyard smoking filtered cigarettes or throwing oranges at Paul Rockett, who I thought I was in love with until I saw him at our twentieth or so reunion, where I noticed something dangerously ministerial about him.)
Anyway, I am so cold I don’t even want to look up any of those How cold is it? jokes.
It was so cold roosters were rushing into Kentucky Fried Chicken begging to use the pressure cooker!
It was so cold hitchhikers were holding up pictures of their thumbs.
It was so cold 911 dispatchers were asking people to hang up and call back in the spring.
That’s how bloody cold it is.
My eyes are red from blepharitis.
My mittens have dandruff.
My bum is chafed. (And that’s with four pair of panties, two pair of overhauls and a set of snow pants—indoors.)
I am so cold up here that I am afraid my fingers are soon going to stick tight to this keyboard and bleed, just the way Blue’s tongue did the other day when he licked that pole. (He’s not even two. What did he know?)
Anyway, Lainey will be getting off the bus in a couple of hours so I’d best go prepare myself. I wouldn’t want anyone to have to super-blow-dry us on our way back in, and there’s only so much time to gather up my winter duds.
In the meantime, stay inside where, if you’re lucky, it’s warm.
“Hey—Jeeves! Wait a minute! I need those earmuffs!”
