Just How Cold Was It?

So. I'm back home now and it's much more reasonable here, temperature-wise. My smarty-pants friend Julie said to me today in an email:

"It is still flippin’ cold here. Below zero again. Do you want to know how much below? Ha."

This got to be a bit of a joke with us. I basically froze my toes from the time I landed there until I landed in Atlanta on the way home. I tried not to complain too much, but these things have a tendency to just slip out! So of course Julie was concerned the entire time. She wanted me to be comfortable. Offered me a robe. Offered me socks. Built nice fires in the fireplace for me to roast my feet.

And yet, for all that concern, she somehow felt compelled to ANNOUNCE THE TEMPERATURE every time it occurred to her!

"It's -4."

"really?"

[time goes by]

"It's -9."

"hmm..."

When someone is so cold that it's pretty much more than 50% of what they think about, it's not really that wise to keep reminding them exactly how cold it is.