When you’ve lived in The Deep South for seven years, you may forget a few things about actual cold weather. No, you don’t forget shoveling and scraping. Don’t be ridiculous. In fact, you were relieved to not shovel or scrape. While your friends raved on about digging their cars out of the plow’s path, you may have reluctantly said, “It seems eighty degrees in January does have its perks.”
But in that same moment, you may well have looked down to verify that, in fact, fire ants were biting your flip-flopped feet *dance dance curse dance curse stomp stomp stomp* and you may have realized it’s time to reapply sunscreen. Again. Le sigh.
People who grow up in cold winters develop a tolerance for cold and snow. We have stories about skiing and sledding and shoveling and scraping and skating. We could spend an entire evening recounting memories of blizzards and ice storms. Even the driving in the snow stories could take hours alone. Oh! Remember that time you fell through the ice? And on the way home, your hair froze and then broke? Yeah. Good times.
So no, you would never forget snow and ice.
No, no, the things you forget about the cold involve smaller, more subtle memories.
Such as, when you’re outside for thirty minutes and it’s only twenty-six degrees/feels like fifteen, your hands go into this sorta numb stage. It’s a bit like when your limbs fall asleep. You don’t really think about it. It’s not that cold for outside in November. In Indiana. It’s not even Winter yet. I mean, you’ve got gloves in your pockets if it gets really cold, but for outside, at seven o’clock in the morning, it’s not bad. Besides, you’re too freakin happy to be swoopin your feet through the golden Ash leaves, lookin at the fine layer of snow that coats everything, smiling like a moron, to notice any discomfort in your hands.
Until you stick your key in the door and turn.
Ow.
“Oh wow, I totally forgot about that painfully cold hand thing. I wonder if there’s a word for it. They should make a reverse dictionary so I could look it up. I can’t believe I forgot that. Haha! Well, you must keep turning it, or you won’t get inside, so stay focused and turn that key. You’ll live.”
Ow.
I tried to look up the frozen-fingers-burn-when-you-touch-things word, but all I got were a bunch of diseases, and those of us with Anxiety Disorder know better than to read about symptoms of disease. *wags frozen finger* Big No-No.
Sometimes your hands just get really freezing cold, and you’re not afflicted with anything horrible. They just get cold. Then they thaw. It won’t kill you.
It’s going out without lip balm that might kill you.
Don’t forget the lip balm.
joeyfullystated 
I just love how the fingers and hands actually burn when you go from that kind of cold into some place warm. You’re thinking, YEAH, WARM! and then it’s ZOMG why are my hands both freezing cold and ON FIRE at the same time?
And then you try to google it and your fingers break off. That’s probably a good thing.
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LOL! Yes, it is strange!
*narrows eyes* Don’t Google It. lol
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I didn’t do it, I swear.
Wretched Google, screwing with our mental health!
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Frostbite?
Personally I find I’ve had enough when, after two minutes outside my nosehairs freeze together.
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Not frostbite, hours before frostbite.
Yeah, frozen nosehair will be here soon…
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Hours before frostbite.. hmm. I believe the correct term is f”**ing cold.
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LMAO! Agreed!
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Saw a mustache break off once. Poor guy’s nose had been running so badly in the freezing cold that his mustache just froze solid.
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I bet that hurt! 😦
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I like the cold for a certain amount of time and then I’m suddenly over it and demand the warm weather return immediately. Give me one good snow storm a year and then let’s be done with snow as well. I like living where the seasons change noticeably, but I have my limits.
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Just remember not to kiss metal outside. Don’t forget that one. It is a killer as kid. Most adults figure it out and stop doing that. But if you been away a while…you might forget. 🙂 have a happy snow year. We get perhaps a inch and then the sun melts it before you can say boo. I like it.
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I WILL remember that! 😛 Thanks!
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Great thoughts, thanks for sharing.
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Thank you for taking time to comment 🙂
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Haha! Frozen fingers do thaw eventually, although they hurt like a bi+ch in the process. But… yes, definitely do NOT forget the lip balm! I forgot the lip balm the other day and having been paying for it ever since…
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Here’s something I never knew and I’ve never lived outside of the north. This past winter I grew a beard. My first real beard. I usually try and give up, but this time I stuck it through until I had more than scruff, less than ZZ Top. I thought, “it’s cold, I have hair on my face, so, warm.” Wrong. Nobody ever told me that shit freezes right on your face and it’s actually colder to have a beard in the winter than to not have one. So I shaved it. Thanks for nothing, biker dad with a beard and years of experience with beards in the winter you just forgot to tell me…
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That’s fascinating. I wonder why? I just asked Jake if he’d had a beard in Winter, and he said yes, but not like Winter here. Hmm…Did you ask your dad about it after?
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