Sock It To Me

 

My mom was always cold. I remember when I was a kid, in the winter she would stand in the corner of the living room where the heat register was. There she would soak up the hot blast of air that came up from the fuel oil fired furnace in the basement. So it was no surprise that when I used to go visit her every Wednesday over the last few years, her thermostat would be set to eighty degrees. Over on the sofa, Mom would be sitting there covered in a blanket. Still cold, always cold. And god help you if you fiddled with that thermostat. Mom could detect a half degree drop in temperature almost immediately. Unfortunately, I have inherited that trait. I don't turn my heat up to eighty degrees, only because my whole building is on one thermostat. I would roast my tenant, Dennis, alive. So I dress in layers during the day and at night sleep with my socks on. My feet are always cold and sometimes my fingers feel like frozen fish sticks. For this I have been mocked. "You sleep with your socks on? My feet would suffocate." Is what my friend Dennis told me. Sorry, but I need the warmth. Not too much warmth. After all, I left Florida for Chicago. Florida has way too much warmth (Not to mention bugs, humidity, hurricanes, and DeSantis). Even my mom wanted nothing to do with living in Florida. Despite that, I did sleep with my socks on when I lived in Florida. That air conditioning was brutal.