Every fall, when the thermostat first drops below 40 degrees, three things happen: My immune system collapses, I lose the desire to socialize with anyone who lives more than three blocks away, and I start putting on layer after layer of protective blubber. Without checking weather reports, I can tell we hit this mark last week because it's reflected in my grocery bill.
In short, my body has begun to prepare for its yearly hibernation. If nature were to take its course, I would spend the next several months spooning with a space heater, watching Newsradio and occasionally foraging on yogurt, craisins and breakfast cereals.
At this latitude, daily life becomes pretty inconvenient between late October and March. However, there are plenty of perks to go along with the freezing digits and timber wolves as long as one prepares in advance, of which last week's cold spell was a reminder.
First off, my roommates and I need to clarify what exactly will happen if we try to burn something in our fireplace. Our landlord isn't certain, but we've narrowed it down to three scenarios.
A) Our fireplace is just a brick recess in the living room wall:
Without proper air flow, my roommates and I fail to start a fire. Persevering with all the bull-headed confidence of our American heritage, we continue to load combustibles into the nicely ornamented hole in our wall, combustibles turn to flammables, we're consumed in a gout of flame and the house burns down.
B) Our fireplace is a brick recess in the wall which ventilates into the apartment above ours:
At some point in the past, the flue of our chimney was sealed up, preventing proper air flow. Persevering with all the bull-headed confidence of our American heritage, we cause the flats above ours to fill with smoke and burning debris, our neighbors are asphyxiated to death and the house burns down.
C) Our fireplace is connected to a flue system which vents outside the house:
Hooray! With our fireplace blazing away merrily, we spend all our time sitting in arm chairs drinking Tom and Jerry's. Every night I curl up in front of the fireplace like a drowsy kitten in some creepy wall calendar for old people. Inevitably, one night I roll into the fireplace, the synthetic fibers in my pajamas ignite and the house burns down.
For many people, the short daylight hours and subzero temperatures make winter a psychological strain. I try and relieve this effect every year by rereading all 3,160 Calvin and Hobbes strips. Most of the best ones involve snowmen, and now that I live on the edge of a park, I can devote a little time each weekend to building some really grotesque specimens along East Gorham.
Extreme winter weather has its perks, too. Living in cities in the upper Midwest, we don't get many monsoons, tornadoes or carrion ants. When a severe blizzard causes power outages and immobilizes cars, it's worth getting up a little early to see people shambling awkwardly down the middle of the street like zombies in mittens.
Leaving College Library at 3 a.m. in mid-February is still depressing, but you can get home much faster if you imagine we've hit another Ice Age and only the polar bears have survived.
When the cold front does come to stay, there won't be much to do besides remembering to dress in layers and screwing up our enthusiasm:
It's fucking freezing! Let's go exploring!
Want to douse Matt with flame retardant chemicals, like quickly? E-mail him at hunziker@wisc.edu._
