My nephew summed it up that way on his recent Facebook entry. He had every right to claim superior understanding to the vast majority of people in the world. In his hometown of North Pole it is -50 Fahrenheit (that's -45 Celsius).
And the city is socked in with "Ice Fog" which is basically a state where the Atmosphere itself says "Screw This! I'm Going Solid!" and becomes an opaque mass of ice crystals floating just above the ground and making driving a true faith experience.Down here in the Sub-Arctic South, Anchorage is hovering at a relatively warm -20.
I know that a few of my listeners have been here to my beautiful homeland, and those few of you will probably agree with me when I say that there is almost no way to make an outsider understand what it is to be cold like this. But I will give you a few reference points.
1. At -20 the snot in your nose freezes upon the first inhalation. It feels kinda nifty, but at the same time a little disconcerting.
2. At -50, the snot in your nose crystalizes instantly. No niftiness, that's flippin' scary. One's nose also turns red and immediately attains a sensation of being bulbous. I always felt like I did my best Bill Clinton impersonations at those times.
3. At -20 peeing on the ground outside makes an ice puddle within a few seconds of it landing on the surface.
4. at -50 you can pile pee up vertically. Also if you take a cup of boiling water and fling it into the air at -50 it will freeze solid before it hits the deck. You can actually hear it freeze...no joke...to quote XKCD.com at -50 Spit Goes Clink.
This makes me remember, painfully, an incident that occured many years ago when I lived in Fairbanks. I was young and single and it was my day off from work. I was craving a guiness but the fridge was empty. Since I did not have a car I decided it would be a good idea to walk to the local 7/11 convenience store and pick up a pack of the black gold. I got dressed to leave in a pair of sweat pants, loose fitting boxer shorts, a sweatshirt and my parka.
It is important to understand that I was wearing boxers on this particular trip as opposed to a tight fitting set of tighty-whities or similar under garment. Loose fitting, let it hang, swinging to the rythmn, boxers.
I left my apartment and within half a mile or so from my home began to take notice of the peculiar lack of traffic in my neighborhood. I kept walking and was wondering why the city seemed to be so quiet. Dead quiet. Pre-Zombie attack quiet.
walked another quarter of a mile or so and gradually became less concerned about the imminent zombie attack because another peculiar sensation took over my senses. I began to notice a particular percussive rythmn as I walked along. A sort of click click click with each step that was becoming more and more uncomfortable.
The clicking soon gave way to a tingly sensation in my nice loose fitting boxers that was not as pleasant as the word "tingly" might typically imply.
Rather than being an "Ooh, baby...you make me tingly in that special place" kind of sensation it was more like a "Doc...it's like pins and needles kind of tingly ... like its about to fall off..help me doc....I don't wanna be a eunuch!" kind of sensation.
My thirst for that fermented Irish delicacy dissipated as I calculated the number of miles yet to go before I reached the beer store and the number of return miles to my home before I could enjoy said stout.
It also calculated the current density of my testicles and the time it woudl take for them to completely solidify at the rate which had now rendred them like a pair of castanets and began to consider the possibility of reaching the state of absolute zero wherein they would shatter on impact with one another.
Still retaining the desire to one day have children, and being proud of my tenor / baritone voice, and not wishing to return to the life of an alto, I did a rapid u-turn and boogied on home as fast as my petrifying manhood allowed me to run.
Upon getting back to my apartment I sat down on my couch next to the steam radiator and thawed myself out, being careful not to thaw certain parts too for fear of permanent damage. I turned on the TV just in time to catch the news and discovered that that day downtown Fairbanks Alaska had experienced near record temperatures of -65 degrees fahrenheit.
To think that I nearly lost my manhood for the sake of a Guinness. Luckily for my wife, I'm very hot-blooded and was able to fully recover.
So to put it all in a nutshell for you folks....its cold...no...you don't understand....its really cold.
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