Frozen Nose Holes

It occurred to me this afternoon. I stood in a crematory parking lot and marveled at the 1500 degree temperature inside the incinerator. That’s hot.

As I contemplated the incinerator’s ability to get so hot it actually burns away the dead body smoke before it hits the chimney, a 22 degree wind chill took off my belt, pulled down my pants, and chapped my ass. I don’t like winter.

That said…one thing I always appreciated about the two mile college freshman walk between Laws Hall and Middlebush Auditorium was my frozen nose holes.

Most Southern folk don’t have a real appreciation for cold. If the weather man says it’s going to be cold, they bring their pet deer inside, curl up next to a tin of burning sterno, and read passages to each other from a Danielle Steele novel. They rarely feel a cold so bitter it calls your mama a trollop and eats your spark plugs. Even more rare, a cold so bitter it turns your nose juice into ice crystals.

There is something very un-Southern about sucking winter in through two nose holes and needing an ice scraper to blow your schnozz. It’s the same cold that makes you wish you didn’t have toes. It is the same cold that redefines pain with a picture of a red, frozen earlobe. It is the same cold that actually makes it painful to put a body part into warm water.

It is cold in the land of cotten today. They say it is going to get really cold tonight…a “bitter” 17 degrees. Bah. That’s southern cold.

Nevertheless, as I continue to hide my carpetbagging tendencies behind a veil of faux-southernism…I will bring Donnie the Deer in tonight, fire up the sterno, and break out the book. I like the ones with Fabio on the front.