Love that trout slapped analogy. I gotta remember it.
Seems so much more culturally acceptable than the other one that comes immediately to mind...
I can't begin to count the number of snow storms I drove through to get to work, school, or just out for the evening. Sometimes it was almost impossible to see where the road was. you'd just survey the whole area, figure out where the ditches were, and stay between them...
I remember having to master the fine art of calculating exactly how far apart the rows of fenceposts were that were sticking out of the tops of the snowdrifts, and calculating a course through the snow in front of the car that kept the post tops on each side of the road a reasonably precise distance apart.
I also remember my wife being absolutely certain I was making that up, until the first time we did it. She quickly gained an entirely new appreciation for what it meant to grow up in rural northern Wisconsin.... as soon as she got past being horrified, which did take a moment or two.
That's why I always laugh when they get a skiff of snow in areas like Austin, TX, and it's declared a disaster area, schools are closed, businesses, and government offices have abbreviated hours, and people are warned that they need to wear long johns, snowmobile suits, and ear muffs until 10 AM, when the temperatures would finally hit 70 degrees.
About 10 years back, I was in Nashvillefor 3-4 days for business, and they had a record cold snap - I mean, like single digits beiow zero. Honest to god, you would have thought you were in a war zone. Literally.
The roads were almost completely vacant, and the electronic info signs over the freeways warned people to stay off the roads and highway; no traveling adised, please stay in your homes - serious danger to public safety, etc. Nashville, one of my favorite American cities, was a ghost town at -4 degrees fahrenheit.
The really creepy thing about it was that people kept cranking up their ovens full blast, plugging every 40-year old space heater they could find into outlets or power strips that couldn't handle the amperage, even turning on hair dryers and letting them blast away.
Which meant that whenever I was outside driving around, I'd see columns of smoke all over the horizon, sometimes maybe even as many as a dozen at a time, because house fires. And it seemed like there was never a minute you couldn't hear sirens somewhere, firetrucks just racing all over town trying to keep up.
And I wasn't even wearing a jacket for short trips between the car and wherever I was going. Felt like I was back in Wisconsin. Man, i was in heaven, but the entire city thought they were in hell.
I can remember, back in 2011, going to a Doctor in Austin, wearing shorts and a t-shirt. I was sitting in the waiting room, with everyone staring at me. They were wearing long pants, hats, scarves, heavy coats, and thinking I was the weird one, even though the temps outside was hovering around 60.
I used to like to go out to LA for a couple of weeks at the end of February, get away from Minnesota for some warm weather hiking and rollerbading. I usually stay at a hotel in Santa Monica a block off the beach so I can rollerblade on the beach at sunset. I walk down from the Seashore Hotel and just put my wheels on, and can go 3-5 miles up and down the beach.
So.... it's a damp, drizzly winter day, low 50s.... gray, chilly, windy.... I'm wearing gym shorts and a Packer T-shirt.
I'm sitting on this little concrete wall, changing into my skates, and this Hispanic or maybe Filipino guy, maybe 5'5"-5'6" walks up with an old-fashionaed, 60's-style bicycle. He's wearing a big, puffy parka, and I couldn't help chuckling at how overdressed he was.
But then he starts digging around in the pockets of the parka.
First thing he hauls out is a stocking cap, which he pulls down all the way over his ears. Digs back into his pockets, and the next thing he drags out is a muffler - which he wraps entirely around his throat and the lower half of his face, and tucks it into the top of his parka.
All that's left of his face now is his glasses, peering out between the bottom of the cap and the top of his muffler.
He zips up the parka, then buttons up the row of button snaps on the front... and, burrows down into those pockets to unearth a pair of puffy mittens.
Pulls the mittens on, adjusts his muffler, climbs on board his Schwinn, starts rolling down the boardwalk - just this big, blue blub balanced on 2 wheels, wobbling along the beach.
There were 2 20-something LA blondes sitting a few feet away eating chicken from a food truck, and they watched the whole thing too. They looked at me and started laughing. I said, "I'd better go back to my motel and get some sweaters or something. I didn't realize how cold it must be out here."
It happens now, down here in the RGV, every time I got anywhere. You can spot the Yankees immediately. Most of us wouldn't be wearing long pants except if we're going to a funeral. We live in a sub-tropical area of the US, why would we treat ourselves like we were living above the dew line?
You, too?
Since I took early retirement 4 years ago, I can count on two hands the number of times I've worn long pants down here, and yeah, one was a funeral. Not counting the funeral, I can maybe even count on one hand. I even shovel with shorts.
We had s few 10-degree nights here last winter, and fast food places were closing down because nobody would come to work. Couldn't even order from Pizza Hut for a couple of days; their drivers refused to drive in it.
I just don't get it.