Cold weather misery
Posted by Pete on December 05, 2023 at 02:00:45
I'm doing the Polar Plunge as a fundraiser soon. I'm not going to lie, I'm not even remotely a fan of the cold. I live in a warm climate, and I enjoy being able to wear shorts and a t-shirt year-round. And while I do enjoy swimming in my clothes, I do not enjoy swimming in cold water. So, I'm just a little hesitant about getting excited about this polar plunge.
While I try to get myself psyched up about this, I thought I'd share a story about a past experience with freezing water.
I think I was in high school when this happened. It was probably around this time of year, and must have been on a weekend. Me and my brother rode our bikes into town, which was in a valley between some mountains. We were hanging out with some friends - specifically my friend Jilly, and a kid from high school named Woody. Woody was something of a unique character. To start with, he was small and scrawny, I bet he weighed barely 100 pounds. You'd think that would mean he'd get picked on a lot. But, Woody could be MEAN. Even the big football players and jocks were scared of him, I think. He was actually a nice enough guy to his friends, and he ended up being friends with Jilly. They had a bit in common, both were actually really smart in their own ways, and I think both struggled with something like ADHD and could be amped up and prone to outbursts. I got along OK with Woody, since I for the most part can get along with anyone, but we were definitely not close friends by any means. On this particular day, I'm not quite sure why Woody was hanging out with us - we went to the same high school, but lived in different towns, and its not like there was any particular reason to come visit our poor little town.
Where we lived is sometimes called "the southernmost part of the north," or "the northernmost part of the south." It was usually pretty warm year-round, except around Christmas where we might get one or two snowstorms. On this particular day, the weather was cool, cloudy and gloomy. I was dressed in a t-shirt, hoodie, blue jeans, sneakers and socks. Back then, we couldn't get up-to-the-minute weather forecasts on our phone. The best we could do back then is check the morning newspaper for the day's forecast, which was usually something pretty vague. Another thing about living in the mountains is - you can't really see what's on the other side of the mountain when you're down in the valley. So it wasn't unusual for it to be bright and sunny one minute, and then a bad storm sneaks up on you all the sudden, and next thing you know its pouring rain.
Well, that's exactly what happened on this day (kind of). We had our bikes and were talking about going our separate ways, then it started to just kind of mist rain. That wasn't too bad, so we casually started getting ready to leave and head home. Then, just as we were getting on to the main road out of town, the weather changed just like that. For a few seconds, it was raining hard. Then, in an instant, it changed to freezing rain and sleet. The sleet was the size of pea gravel, and it was pelting us. In a matter of seconds I was soaked from head to toe -my hoodie was completely soaked through, as were my jeans, and even my shoes and socks. You'd have thought I'd jumped into a pool. It was sleeting hard enough that it was starting to accumulate on the roads, coating them with a thick slushy ice, and and it was tough to keep control of our bikes. That also meant it was tough for cars on the road to keep control - and then two very scary things happened at once. First, a car came around the bend in the rough right towards us, skidding and sliding on the slippery road. Woody, probably partly startled, and partly just slipping on the road himself, took a hard fall off his bike into the ditch, which was now filling up with icy water. In a panic, the rest of us jumped off our bikes into the ditch. The icy water immediately soaked through my shoes and it felt like my feet were being stabbed with thousands of needles. Cole and Jilly helped Woody up, and we trudged a little ways up the hill off the side of the road, and started running towards our house, dragging our bikes behind us.
When we finally made it to my driveway, my mom was standing in our garage, looking frantic, but relieved when we saw us arrive home relatively unharmed. It was still sleeting, freezing and windy, and she ushered us into the house, and handed us each a large towel. In the summer time, it wasn't unusual at all for us to get caught outside in a thunderstorm and arrive home soaking wet. But in the summer, we'd have to strip out of our wet clothes outside before heading inside to shower and change. Today, my mom thankfully just told us to go upstairs and change, and find some dry clothes for our friends. So we trampled upstairs, I'm sure my mom was cringing at the muddy water we were dripping through the house. My brother Cole ran straight to his bedroom. Then my friend Jilly ran straight to MY bedroom - leaving me and Woody with nowhere to go. OK, fine, well, I can make the best of this situation. The bathroom was free, and I figured that for the first time, I'd take the first shower while there was still hot water.
Now I promise that this next part wasn't actually as weird as it might sound. Woody followed me into the bathroom, likely because he didn't know where else to go. I think I was probably having some kind of runner's high, between being so cold and having a long run up a mountain in freezing rain to get home. And by now the cold was catching up with me, with my hands and feet feeling numb and my teeth chattering. So, I didn't think too much about it, I just turned the shower on all the way as hot as it would go, waited a moment for the water to heat up, and jumped right in. I'd taken my shoes off at some point, but otherwise was still fully clothed. It seemed to take a while for the water to soak through my heavy hoodie, which was obviously completely waterlogged, but after a minute or two I could at least feel my fingers and toes again.
Woody was just laughing at me. "Does that actually feel better?" he asked. "Yeah, you want to try?" I asked, stepping out of the shower, but leaving it running. Woody looked a little hesitant - he didn't seem like the type to enjoy slapstick comedy, especially to be the one in the middle of it. But he hesitantly pulled his socks off first, but did cautiously step under the shower in his longsleeve shirt and black pants. By then, Jilly emerged from my room, wearing a set of my sweat pants and sweat shirt, and I retrieved dry clothes for myself and Woody.
We all gathered by downstairs, where my mom had hot chocolate and chicken soup waiting for us. I was a little nervous that Woody might say something weird about us kind-of-sort-of showering together - but if he thought it was weird, he didn't say anything. I tried to keep the conversation focused on other topics, mainly by continually complaining about how cold I still was and asking my mom to turn up the heat in the house. My mom was thoroughly unconcerned with with my complaining, but noticed that Woody was sitting at the table barefoot, and asked whether he'd like a clean pair of socks or slippers. "No thanks, something about wearing someone else's socks doesn't work for me." "What about underwear, then," I asked him, whispering so my mom couldn't hear. "I'm freeballing," he whispered back, smirking. I made a mental note to burn the pair of sweatpants I was loaning him. Cole, meanwhile, was dressed in a t-shirt, gym shorts and was also barefoot, so I turned my attention to him, asking him how he could be dressed like he's ready for a trip to the beach, and why wasn't he also so cold. Cole shrugged, "I just took a hot shower and I feel better... maybe you should try that?"
- Re: Cold weather misery Wetnboy 15:42:36 12/09/2023
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- Re: Cold weather misery Zonie 06:09:10 12/05/2023
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