Be cool, stay warm

Right now it’s a balmy – 36ºC outside. Holy @$&% I hate being Canadian sometimes! You should see me dressing for work - an abominable snow monster in all my gear; I can barely rest my arms at my sides. When it gets this chilly who cares about fashion?

One of the glories about getting older is that most of us (not all) seem to acquire a certain amount of logic and reason. If I hearken back to my adolescence, a frightening image that I try not to revisit too often, I can recall freezing my ears off in winter for fear of wearing a toque…God forbid that it should mess my hair or make me look “uncool.” What I and many of my fellow students failed to understand is that suffering from frostbite is significantly dorkier than bundling up to stay warm and healthy.

Gone are my days of spike heels and fall coats in winter. It’s with great pride that I dress myself in a thousand layers: splash pants, toque, fur hood, thermal-socks, wooly mittens and waterproof boots. Do I look sexy? No. Do I care? No. Can I walk where I need to without freezing my posterior off? Yes. Ladies in gentlemen, this is the new cool!

While others hide from the cold or suffer its effects in the name of vanity, I’ll go about my merry little way. Survival of the fittest..or warmest...