If you don't know about my location history, here's a short rundown. From birth until the summer of 2000, I lived in Pennsylvania. From my Senior year of high school through graduation from Boston University, North Carolina was my official state of residence (though I wouldn't call it home). Now, in my mid-twenties, Boston is home.
It's snowing here today, so maybe it's fitting that today's Holidaily prompt is asking for a snow story. But my snow story is set in my first home, my home of the first seventeen years of my life ...
Back in the 90's, I was a kid; and, during one particularly nasty snow storm, I had a fever.
I was maybe twelve or thirteen at the time and school was canceled for inclement weather. My parents did their usual thing--they knocked on my door when they heard the announcement on the radio, told me to go back to sleep, left for work, and I woke up again a few hours later.
On this day, however, I was sweating bullets. My bed was too warm, my room was too warm, the house was too warm, and every freaking thing I put on was sweaty and gross within ten or fifteen minutes.
And, as I stood in the living room, sweating with fever in a pair of summer shorts and a tank top, I looked out the picture-window at the front lawn. The snow was coming down in giant fat flakes, there were already several inches of the stuff on the ground, and I had a brilliant plan: I would go outside, just as I was, and be comfortable.
And so I did. I put on a pair of my father's sneakers to act as snow-shoes (more weight distributed over a wider surface--I could be a clever kid), a T-shirt for better coverage (because I didn't want my neighbors freaking out too much), and a pair of gloves. And I went out into the snow to make a snow man.
Weirder still, my plan worked (and no sarcasm here at all). Even with the temperature where it was (below freezing), I was perfectly comfortable in shorts and T-shirt for about half an hour. After that point, I started to feel the chill and went back indoors.
And voila! No more fever. I felt better, I wasn't sweating anymore, and my temperature was back to normal.
That, ladies and gentlemen, is the magic of snow.
Turn the page ...
Close the book ...
