Friend
2: (Answering phone) Hello?
Friend
1: Hi! Just calling to see if you’re
ready to hibernate for the next two weeks.
Friend
2: No, since I still have to go in to work unless they call a State of
Emergency.
Friend
1: Heh-heh, yeah, I don’t emerge from my cave into less than 20°F air. Which I’ve heard it will be, for quite some
time.
Friend
2: So, what, you’ve pre-called out from work or something?
Friend
1: Pretty much. I have a lot of personal
time accrued, and I’m too lazy to actually go somewhere on vacation so,
yeah. Gotta use the hours sometime in
the year, `cause I’m certainly not giving them back.
Friend
2: You’re ridiculous. You’re gonna waste
all that vacation time sitting inside, watching TV, eating junk, and sleeping,
just to avoid brief freezing walks to and from your car?
Friend
1: That sums it up nicely.
Friend
2: You know, I have a cousin who works outside all the time,
making the infrastructure’s still running for all our techno toys and what-not,
and you can’t even handle less than five minutes’ exposure from various
hothouses.
Friend
1: And I applaud your cousin’s work, without which I could not surround myself with
warmth and blubber.
Friend
2: Whatever. I’m going to bed now,
before making my contribution to society tomorrow, lazy bones. (Disconnects)
Friend
1: Jealous.
LATER THAT WEEK
Friend
2: (Answering phone) He-he-hellllooo?
Friend
1: (Watching TV and eating junk) Catch you at a bad time?
Friend
2: Ye-yes, I-I’m waiting for my ca-car to warm up so I can-can-can go to
wo-work!
Friend
1: (Talking with a mouth full of ice cream) That’s a fallacy: your car’s
newish, you don’t have to wait for it to warm up, just drive.
Friend
2: Wha-wha-wha-?
Friend
1: It’s got fuel injection so it warms up on the go – you’re actually now hurting
the car, wasting gas, and adding to the greenhouse gases that possibly
caused this very situation we’re in now, did you know that?
Friend
2: Wha-wha-wha-?
Friend
1: (Pauses video on TV to scroll through laptop screen) Yeah, I was just
reading on NASA that the polar vortex we’re in is all the air pushed
down here from the Arctic by all the warm air that’s up there – it’s -20° in
Chicago because that’s the actual temperature in Santa Claus’s workshop! And Mars!
Friend
2: Wha-wha-wha-?
Friend
1: It’s also -56° in Minneapolis – and did you see those pictures of
Lake Michigan frozen?! I mean,
the entire lake, actually frozen!
This is world-ending stuff going on here! And people are dying because of it, it’s
horrific! So, what’s your car temp
saying it is now?
Friend
2: It-it says 4°.
Friend
1: Ha! Above 0 – you’ll be fine.
Friend
2: 4°!
Friend
1: Don’t be a wimp: people in the Midwest and north would boo you off the
stage. Cheer up, though: in a few weeks,
it’s supposed to go all the way up to 40°.
Friend
2: Good-good-good-bye. (Disconnects)
Friend
1: (Disconnects and starts the video again) Absolutely no perspective.
Friend
2: (Begins driving, staring at gloved hands) I can’t-can’t feel my fingers….
THE FOLLOWING WEEK
Friend
2: (Answering phone) Hello?
Friend
1: (Lying in bed, surrounded by books, magazines, and empty potato chip bags)
So, I hate to say it, but I’m actually starting to get a little bored.
Friend
2: Shut up.
Friend
1: I know, I totally get it now: I had to step out the other day because I was
running out of food, and even with the thermal underwear and a snowsuit, within
two minutes my eyelashes started to shatter!
But that was it – otherwise, I’ve barely moved in two weeks and I think
I may be getting a little unhealthy.
Friend
2: Oh you poor thing.
Friend
1: (Idly flipping through a magazine) Thanks, and I think I’m picking up
something from having the heat on all the time – and I do mean all the time, as
in it never really turns off `cause I have it set to 85° – I keep forgetting to
change the filter, plus do you think I should crack open a window like
everybody says you should? `Cause that
seems counter-productive, right?
Friend
2: You know what: my heat’s been blowing out cold air lately, and the water
main near my place broke and it might not be fixed until tomorrow – you mind if
I come over and defrost with a shower, please?
Friend
1: Ooh, yeah, that may not be such a good idea.
Friend
2: Oh come on! You won’t even have to
move, I’ll climb in through an uncracked window!
Friend
1: Yeah, you’ve ever been in a place where the occupant’s barely stirred in two
weeks?
Friend
2: What?
Friend
1: It’s pretty vile here right now. And
I don’t know how long the clean-up from this disaster’ll take – could be days,
could be years.
Friend
2: I need a shower!
Friend
1: Listen, how about standing outside in the lovely snowfall that’s been going
on for weeks, hm? That’s water. And you’ll feel all nice and warm in your
no-heat home afterward.
Friend
2: Never mind, I’ll just bundle up and hope I don’t reek – thanks for nothing,
and good luck with the pressure ulcers and atrophied muscles you’re accruing,
sloth! (Disconnects)
Friend
1: (Disconnects, then turns to look at the lovely snowfall out the window) How
can something so peaceful and sweet-looking be so life-inconveniencing?
