S/he
refuses to buy an air conditioner. S/he does her taxes by paper. S/he says the
generic spaghetti sauce is better and doesn’t own an Apple product. Who? Why,
it’s the Contrarian, the same person who goes jogging when it’s five degrees,
Fahrenheit, swimming when it’s 45 and never takes a front-row parking space
(because some people need it more than s/he). Also, s/he uses
gender-nonspecific pronouns.
Annoying
as that may be, sociologists agree that the Cold Weather Denier is the most widely
loathed of all the Contrarians, followed by the Birthday Deniers (those jerks
who don’t inform their friends of upcoming or current-day birthdays) and sociologists.
Take our nine-point quiz to find out if this serious epidemic affects you or
someone you love.
1-Your
new puppy walks around in the snow, picks up its feet and stares at you. You:
a-Wish
for the 1,000th time that you’d gotten Princess spayed instead of buying new snow
tires for your bike.
b-Huddle
against the exhaust from the dryer, where your workout clothes are dry but
tumbling to make them toasty warm.
c-Gently
remind him to “do his business.” This usually works, but sometimes he thinks his business is eating rabbit droppings.
d-Make
a snow angel.
2-While
playing a party game, you have 30 seconds to name ten places that are warmer
than where you live, otherwise you have to take a shot of tequila. You:
a-Flub.
Alcohol is the only thing getting you through this nightmare of a “season.”
b-Name
the states where all of your children moved after graduating from college PLUS
those where your friends from college moved after graduating from college. This
should be more than enough.
c-Have
had too much tequila already. Better think fast.
d-Probably
anyone else’s house because we don’t turn the heat on until February.
3-Speaking
of heat, how would you describe the system by which you choose to turn it on
every year?
a-Common
sense.
b-A
financial consideration.
c-Friends
stop letting me sleep over in their apartments with central air.
d-A
game.
4-Complete
the sentence. It’s cold if:
a-The
AAA responder refuses to take off his gloves to attach the jumper cables.
b-The
new puppy stands too long in one place and gets stuck to the ground.
c-Even
the guy on the radio sounds cold.
d-Theoretical
physicists appear in one’s backyard and begin to conduct experiments on the
Kelvin scale.
5-Short
answer. Write a short paragraph explaining why winter is your favorite season
and why winter DRIVING is not only bearable, it’s “your favorite.” Alternately,
leave this section blank.
6-The
best sleeping weather is:
a-With
the TV on and tuned to a rerun of “Golden Girls.”
b-The
warm, steamy conditions created in the bathroom by a hot bath.
c-When
the wind carries with it the scent of possibility.
d-Ernest
Shackleton’s pup tent.
7-True
or False. School should be cancelled if the temperature falls below 10 degrees
Fahrenheit.
a-True.
They can always go to school during the summer.
b-True.
I home school, anyway, and we go to school all year round.
c-Maybe.
Only if the parents need help at home shoveling or detaching the new puppy’s
feet from where they’ve frozen to the ground.
d-True.
How else will children learn to swing an ice ax.
8-The
man next door likes to run outside after it snows and have snowball fights with
his kids while wearing only shorts and no shoes. He does this very quickly and
runs back inside. Your spouse notices and calls you over to get your opinion on
the man’s sanity, sense of decency, whatever. You:
a-Shield
your eyes.
b-Run
a hot, hot bath and paper train the new puppy, who seems to enjoy the added
convenience, anyway.
c-Act
bemused but generally unimpressed. You saw this guy building a snow fort a
couple weeks ago, and it was pretty lame.
d-Dust
off the Slip ‘n’ Slide.
9-It’s
currently 20 below zero, not including wind chill. Do you factor in the wind
chill when you tell your aunt over the phone how cold it is? (She lives in
North Carolina.)
a-Absolutely.
The wind makes everything so much less bearable.
b-Absolutely.
If it wasn’t for the wind, you could almost stand the winter.
c-Absolutely,
but I can’t stay on the phone for long, I’m in the middle of re-decking my
roof.
d-There’s
no such thing as wind chill, or cold, for that matter. Cold is the absence of
entropy, which is the absence of order, which is a meaningless concept, anyway.
SCORE:
If you answered “d” to five or more questions, do yourself a favor and jump in
a lake.
(images via Shutterstock, snowfall and skeptical man)
