If You’re Going to Insist on Freezing

Psst. Hey. Hey you! Got a minute?

What if I was to tell you that my iPod, set on “shuffle” and played during my morning’s commute, told the future? Would you believe me?

You would?

I knew there was something funny about you.

Shh. Let’s listen:

Howlin’ for You by The Black Keys
I’m Not Gonna Teach Your Boyfriend How to Dance with You by Black Kids
Suddenly… (I Miss Carpaty) by Gogol Bordello
Electric Feel by MGMT
Learn to Fly by Foo Fighters
Low Rising by The Swell Season
I Can’t Get Next to You by The Temptations

So that’s it! There’s the future! What’s it mean, you say? Sorry – that costs extra.


Yes, sir, winter’s begun in earnest; and you know what that means.

It’s time to laugh and point.

Dear Fellow Bus Rider, why? Why do you persist in your ways?

You! Why do you insist upon wearing pants belted just below your butt cheeks? Why are you wearing an overly large parka, your arms pulled in, the sleeves flapping uselessly in the driving wind? You look miserable, truly miserable. What you’re wearing is the equivalent of wearing nothing at all. True, it lacks the entertainment quality of standing at the bus stop naked; but your enormous jeans and jacket are no match for a winter gale. I can see that you are – what? – 16? 17? Allowances for your stupidity have been made. Still. Wherever you are from, you need to return there, immediately, before they find your silly, frozen body on the sidewalk and we are forced to shovel around you.

But you! Lady on the Bus! Heels? Heels?! You’re old enough to know better.

And before you go imagining an elegant woman, long-legged, fashionable, and from a part of the world that knows not the ways of the winter, let me assure you that Ms. It-Says-“Juicy”-On-The-Seat-Of-My-Pants is from here.

This ain’t her first time around the ice rink.

Part of me – the smug, warm part of me, liberally layered in wool, down, and occasionally, cats – wants the bus to break down, to be told that we need to walk to the next stop and that it’s, oh, a mile away. I, Nanook of the North, will trudge bravely forward, cracking my whip at the sled dogs and shouting encouragement while Ms. Three-Inch Heels totters down the steps of the bus and plants herself face first into a snow bank.

This is where the laughing and pointing part comes in.

It’s Minnesota. Our heating bills are sky-high, the days are six hours long, and exposed flesh freezes.

Otherwise, go about your business, fellow commuters. I have no strong feelings about this.