Hey, Canada: Can you close the door? All your air is coming down here. Wouldn't want you to run out. We get the point. You're cold. You like to share. But we've had enough.
Oh, one could say, "What we're going through is the worst, and it'll only get better," but that's what they said in a Civil War field clinic after they'd taken off the second leg.
It will get better, of course. The ghastly stone-cold block of January will give way to useless February, which feels like an infomercial for a month Not Sold in Stores; then it's the raw harsh expanse of March, the cruel inconsistency of April, and then it warms up around May 29.
After that? June comes in prancing like a pony, followed by July Fourth, after which we think about getting in a trip to the lake before fall starts.
See? Walk in the park. On slick ice. Unless this is one of those legendary years where the ice-out day on the lakes coincides with a notice from the school about bus assignments, in which case our kids will have memories of Awesome Record Cold they can use to bore their own kids. Whatever happens, we will not complain.
No sir. It is unbecoming to complain; we're supposed to take this as the price for living in God's country. And you don't hear Him complaining.
We're allowed to admit to a few inconveniences. It's hard to drive when your eyeballs freeze solid, and you can't blink because your eyelids would get stuck like a tongue on a flagpole.
If you're lucky, your car's heater can be set on "Blast From the Gaping Maw of Hell" and it thaws your orbs by the time you hit the highway. But I pass people whose teeth are chattering like wind-up gag dentures, and it's obvious their heaters are incapable of emitting anything warmer than penguin flatulence.
