Queer Eye for the Cold Guy

Summer

Late last October, while walking one of the dogs, I rounded the corner at the end of the street and came upon the fireman who lived in the corner house. He was out by his garage with a few of his firemen buddies. One of them looked me up and down and said to nobody in particular, "Look at this guy, all bundled up." Yes I was. I had on my big pea coat, a sweat shirt under that, long pants, and on my head, a little knit cap. The firemen were all in short sleeve shirts, and shorts. It was around forty seven degrees out and it was my first Chicago winter in twenty eight years. For somebody who just moved here from Florida, it was cold. Forty seven degrees in Fort Lauderdale will cause school closings and power outages. When the temperatures fall below fifty, citizens of Florida will dig deep into the closet to find that huge, puffy down coat that they wore in 1985. It's how you can tell what year somebody moved to Florida, by the style of coat that is worn once a year. It will be dirty and torn, but it will keep them warm.

Fifty degrees outside

I was reading a story on the Chicago Tribune web site the other day. It was about high schools discontinuing the use of student lockers. It seems that the kids don't have books anymore. No pens, no paper, nothing but an iPad (I suspect these were schools in well to do suburbs). The schools said that some kids never even find their lockers because they don't need them. Okay, so I wanted to comment below the article and ask, 'What about their winter coats? Where do they put their coats and jackets?' The answer was provided by all the people who had commented before I got there. Many teachers and many parents explained that kids do not wear coats. It is considered un-cool.  It seems that in the name of fashion and fitting in, kids will go to school in sub zero weather wearing shorts and a tee shirt. First of all, that wouldn't have flown when I was in high school. I once got pulled aside and yelled at by the principal for not having a belt. Kids will now risk frostbite and pneumonia just so nobody ridicules them for wearing a dorky coat.

Twenty degrees outside

I think that is the reason people from Chicago bitch about the weather so much. They don't dress for it. Everybody is hoping that somehow winter will magically disappear if they dress like it's seventy degrees out. I dress for the weather. Shorts in the summer, long thick jeans in the winter. I really don't give a frigid fuck if a bunch of firemen think I look stupid on a chilly autumn day. I would rather be warm and comfy in my big fluffy coat with a sweat shirt, a flannel shirt, and a tee shirt underneath that. The only problem that I see is that it does make it very hard to bend over and pick up dog poop.

Below zero