I\u2019m sorry our cold isn\u2019t really cold, but the fact is, I\u2019m still cold, and I\u2019m not sorry about that. <\/p>\n
This is the lament of a Floridian every winter. How we poor, wretched, warmth-deprived beings have to fear how our commentary on the temperature will be taken the wrong way if mentioned in the wrong company. <\/p>\n
Know what I\u2019m talking about? Happened to mention to a visitor from up north how you feel about our weather \u2014 even casually. \u201cHow am I doing? Well, it\u2019s cold enough outside to freeze the freckles right off my body!\u201d I will say. <\/p>\n
You know pretty quickly you\u2019ve made a mistake by the indignation on the person\u2019s face. It is as if Mount Vesuvius is about to uncork. That you are about to be beaten to a pulp for something you have said that is so insulting, so degrading and so blatantly ignorant that it could freeze the freckles right off your body.<\/p>\n
\u201cCold?!?\u201d comes the reply, and it\u2019s icy. \u201cYou call this \u2018cold?!?\u2019 It\u2019s 134 degrees BELOW zero back at my home in Boston. It\u2019s so cold, the ice got frostbite.\u201d <\/p>\n
Ouch!<\/p>\n
And then, shivering Floridian that you are, you have to apologize and blush and feel awkward and say things like, \u201cWell, shucks, that is cold! I just meant for us, we bronze-skinned Southern natives who don\u2019t own any clothes that don\u2019t incorporate flip-flops and shorts. We just find it a little \u2026 you know \u2026 chilly.\u201d<\/p>\n
By that point we have already gone too far. We fear we have re-ignited a new North-South civil war, and that it will all be blamed on you. \u201cChildren, the war of 2015 was started when an ignorant St. Augustine man wearing gloves and a parka in 66-degree weather declared it was \u2018cold!\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Listen, it\u2019s not my fault. I\u2019m from Tampa. Fifty-degree weather there sent people to the hospital with frostbite. If the temperature dropped into the 40s, a city-wide emergency was declared and we all were transported in heated moving trucks to Miami for thawing \u2026 in giant Cuban sandwich presses. <\/p>\n
So, do I have to feel guilty all the time when I say it\u2019s \u201ccold?\u201d I know it\u2019s not REALLY cold. Not northern cold. Not where people are really suffering, and digging out from snow drifts as high as their houses, and where staying warm isn\u2019t about comfort, but staying alive. I get that, but it\u2019s cold enough for us. For goodness sake, the tip of my nose looks like Rudolph! <\/p>\n
We mean no offense when we say it. In our flip-flops, we just don\u2019t know any better. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I\u2019m sorry our cold isn\u2019t really cold, but the fact is, I\u2019m still cold, and I\u2019m not sorry about that. This is the lament of a Floridian every winter. How we poor, wretched, warmth-deprived beings have to fear how our commentary on the temperature will be taken the wrong way if mentioned in the wrong company. Know what I\u2019m talking about? Happened to mention to a visitor from up north how you feel about our weather \u2014 even casually. \u201cHow am I doing? Well, it\u2019s cold enough outside to freeze the freckles right off my body!\u201d I will say. You know pretty quickly you\u2019ve made a mistake by the indignation on the person\u2019s face. It is as if Mount Vesuvius is about to uncork. That you are about to be beaten to a pulp for something you have said that is so insulting, so degrading and so blatantly ignorant that it could freeze the freckles right off your body. \u201cCold?!?\u201d comes the reply, and it\u2019s icy. \u201cYou call this \u2018cold?!?\u2019 It\u2019s 134 degrees BELOW zero back at my home in Boston. It\u2019s so cold, the ice got frostbite.\u201d Ouch! And then, shivering Floridian that you are, you have to apologize and blush and feel awkward and say things like, \u201cWell, shucks, that is cold! I just meant for us, we bronze-skinned Southern natives who don\u2019t own any clothes that don\u2019t incorporate flip-flops and shorts. We just find it a little \u2026 you know \u2026 chilly.\u201d By that point we have […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[553,558],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1256","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2015-nutshells","category-florida"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1256","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1256"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1256\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1257,"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1256\/revisions\/1257"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1256"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1256"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1256"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}