People that spend any significant amount of time around me know that I love to wear shorts. When I get home from work, or any other place which requires me to wear long pants, I quickly change into shorts. Dressing to go out to any random place, I put on shorts. I even keep a spare pair of shorts in the trunk of my car, just in case I’m somewhere I have to wear pants, and can’t get home before being able to change.
I figure it might have something to do with growing up in central Texas, where heat is a matter of course. Maybe, but then again there are a lot of people from around here that are always wearing pants, a practice I’ve never understood. When I was probably 12, my family piled in the car and headed North to attend my brother’s wedding. In Austin, where we lived, the temperature during the day was in the upper 60’s, lower 70’s, this being just before Christmas. I guess that if you had asked me if it was colder further North I would have said yes, but I didn’t really think about it when packing. So after driving 2000 miles, my parents discovered I hadn’t packed a single pair of long pants. All I had were shorts, sandals, t-shirts, and a light jacket. (My legs don’t really get cold for some reason. As long as the rest of me is warm, my legs can be exposed to sub zero temperatures and I’m fine.) It was a little chilly trudging through snow in shorts and sandals. This being my first real exposure to snow, I decided it was probably best avoided in the future. A quick trip to the store equipped me with the bare minimum to survive in the inhospitable climate. Suffice it to say, I learned that there are times where shorts just won’t work for technical reasons.
This weekend I let a friend of mine know I was going to go to The Cheesecake Factory to get one of their rather delightful salads. Prior to going though, I was planning on attending the Circus Chimera to see their presentation of Alice in Wonderland. She suggested that she meet up with me for the salad, and then we both carpool to a concert a friend of ours had organized for a friend of his. Naturally the circus seemed like a prime target for spending the evening, but there were two problems. First, I hadn’t been able to find anyone that wanted to go with me. What on Earth do people have against the circus? (On a related note, I had a friend growing up that did in fact run away from home and join The Circus.) Second, my friend is a very nice girl, and I’m a sucker for spending time with nice girls. Yes, it’s very sad, I know. So, to the concert I ended up going.
When I first left home, I still hadn’t decided I was going to go to the concert. Eating the salad was going to happen, of that I had made sure. But I’m not the most excited person in the world for live music. I like it, and it’s nice, but it’s a huge time commitment. After the first 30 minutes or so, I’m usually thinking of all the other useful or entertaining things I could be doing that didn’t involve sitting or standing mostly stationary for hours on end. Having not yet decided that I would be going to the concert, and not having been told that the concert was outdoors, I left the house wearing what I of as one of my more favorite pairs of shorts. This would be poor decision given the fact that I ended up going to an outdoor concert and the temperature would be 50F + wind chill.
When I got out of the car at the place, I immediately realized just how cold it was, and just how outdoors it was. Taking a quick mental summary of my situation, I was wearing a short sleeved button down shirt, a pair of thin linen shorts, and some flip flops. People at the concert wearing pants, boots, heavy coats, and scarfs were cowering in what looked to be fear, but was probably just a feeble attempt at conserving what little warmth was left in their bodies. Things were not looking promising.
Sitting on a bench next to my friend, I attempted to look as cool (or warm, depending on your view) as possible. Mind over matter. It actually worked pretty well. With my arms to my side, my hands in my pockets, and huddled closely to those around me, I wasn’t to frozen, or at least I thought I wasn’t. I turned down an offer to take a girl’s coat that was felt bad for me, but who obviously already needed the coat. I even turned down the opportunity to share a sleeping bag with a guy and his fiance (a move I would have turned down either way as I have a strict policy of never sharing another man’s bed).
As it turns out, I was simply so cold by this point, that I couldn’t feel my skin well enough to recognize I was still cold. When I finally got someplace where warm air brushed up against my skin, it caused blood to flow in a tingling sensation. You know that feeling where some part of your body hasn’t gotten blood in a while? That was the entirety of my skin, like a sufferer of Morgellons disease I was.
Lesson learned. In the future, always ask if it is indoors our outdoors in freezing temperature where we are going.
Last night I went to bed at a very responsible 10:30 PM, only to wake up again at 1 AM. I laid in bed for another two hours waiting for sleep to return to me before eventually wandering from my room in search of entertainment. I wasn’t tired at all, but I didn’t feel like touching my computer so I turned on the TV to watch whatever we had available, which of course led to the munchies. I have a couple boxes of microwave popcorn for just such an occaision. Something must have gone horribly wrong with the popcorn though, because when I pulled it out of the microwave, hot oil splashed from the bag onto my chest. Pain. This morning I noticed that I had a painful blister on my chest at one of the points I’d been splashed.