Announcement: I have Unfriended The Cold

There’s nothing quite like that moment when you wake up one morning and realize it’s finally winter and that you’ve been living in denial for the past two weeks, during that slow descent from “bracing” to “chilly” to “Fuck me, this is surely illegal!”

Today, when I dragged my reluctant arse (followed by the equally reluctant rest of me) out of bed, it was still practically dark and my mind wasn’t talking to me at all, since it had just been rudely dragged out from beneath the warm, tropical bliss of Blanket Bay and into the cold, evil, almost light of a northern winter's day. Well the cold, evil light of the computer room anyway. Let's not get carried away...

I pulled on a sweater over my pyjamas and dutifully checked the weather. If you live in a cold climate, checking the weather in the morning is like breathing. If you intend risking your life by leaving the house, even if it’s just to sit and shiver in your frigid car for ten minutes before you can drive anywhere, you had better know just how much swearing you’re going to be doing in advance, in order to prepare.

In fact, instead of giving the temperature in degrees you might as well give it in sweaters. “Today is a seventeen sweater day, enjoy!” then you can mumble incoherent, inappropriate insults to the weatherman about exactly where he can stick his *cheery forecasts, as you’re waddling out to the parking lot, arms at a 90 degree angle to your body, due to your Michelin Man-like proportions from the 23 different layers you’re wearing.

*Another great idea for weather forecasting would be to give the degree of cold in ‘celebrities’. Like say, for example, a ‘Morgan Freeman day’ would be a mildly chilly day, nothing to worry about, no winter woollies necessary, almost pleasant in fact, while, at the other end of the scale, a ‘Robin Williams day’ would mean, “If you leave the house you will freeze to death in seconds like Jack Nicholson in ‘The Shining’ it is even possible there will be a new Ice Age.”


So this morning my iPod gleefully informed me it was minus twenty-three point eight degrees F. The “F” stands for “Fuck me, I am not going out in that.” So yes, if you’re complaining that it’s 30 degrees Fahrenheit or something in your neck of the woods and BRRRRRRR it’s cold, just you shut the fuck up, please.

I went out at lunchtime to get some fixings for dinner tonight and a Diet Pepsi, (let’s get real here, it’s cold, it’s not a goddamn Apocalypse or anything) and it had warmed up considerably to a balmy -4F (–21C), so I got out my bikini and my sun tan lotion and lay out in the parking lot, bathing in the rays and drinking a pina colada.

Actually, I called winter a “giant goatbanger” and ran like I was being chased by Andy Dick at a cocaine party, across the road to the store, before I got frostbite in my extremities.

I decided after that, that if I miraculously won the lottery, the first thing I’d do would be build myself a little house right on the Equator and screw this winter business.

OK, technically it’d be the third thing I’d do after I bought all the Diet Pepsi on Earth and banned P. Diddy from ever hoisting his nastiness on the public ever again.

Priorities people, priorities!