And When the Glacier Moved Down Nicollet, We Knew It Was Serious

First came the snow.

And we knew this to be fair, to be good.  It’s Minneapolis, for cryin’ out loud.  Our seasons are beautiful because they exist.

And then came the cold.

And that, too, was known to be fair, even good.  We have, after all, tubs and tubs of clothes suited for this very thing.  We have summer clothes; we have winter clothes.  Sometimes, they’re worn within hours of each other.

If ya wants the ecstasy-bound exhilaration of spring, it’s best precipitated by the heady horrors of winter.

But when, ladies and gentlemen, the mercury dips 70 degrees lower than what is needed to freeze water?  When one’s eyeballs develop a frosted haze and one realizes that this is possibly what frozen conjunctiva look like?  When, despite wearing all manner of layered clothing, from woolen leg warmers from ankle to knee, trousers, snow boots, a fleece vest under a down coat that could double as a sleeping bag and a hat once described by Robert Peary as “too warm”, when the cold creeps up from the sidewalk, up the leg, the spine, until the only thing that could be said to be warm on one’s body is the back of one’s neck?

That is where I take issue.

Ladies and gentlemen, it took me a long time to get there, but I must admit it.

I’m cold.

It pains me to say it.  It is, after all, against Code.  Minnesotans scoff openly at temperatures.  We hit over 100 in the summer whilst grinning, and then we swing over 100 degrees in the other direction and we laugh.

But this is different.

This is the Polar Vortex.

Have you been?  Oh, my dear, you must!  Apparently the air normally situated over the Arctic Circle has lost its way, taken a southerly dip, if you will, and settled over the Great Plains.

Entirely without our permission.

First came the snow.

Then came the cold.

And then came the complaints.

I’m cold.