Mammal

Brandi and I are on our writer's retreat at the southwest corner of Michigan. We came in last night, taking off from work early and braving the beginning of rush hour traffic and sub-zero temperatures that caused the windows of our car to not only fog but ice up. It's always particularly frustrating in winter to put on all of your layers, hop in the car, and then struggle to get the top layer off while you're sitting at a traffic light or, worse, driving on the highway. I've grown quite skilled at yanking my gloves off with my mouth.

Of course, even if you get down to just a t-shirt in front of vents pouring out heat like jet engines, you've still got the long underwear and pants, and, if you're like me, the pajama pants you added in between because, hey, it's not layering unless you're having trouble flexing your knees.

Oddly, I'm starting to get used to the weather. Today, it warmed up to ten degrees and on our trip to the grocery store, Brandi and I couldn't stop remarking about how warm it felt. Is it warm when a can of soda will freeze so hard it pops the top for you? Warm when you can't get the car washed but have to settle for brushing the salt off the windshield with your glove? Warm when the icicles on the house across the street stretch practically roof-to-ground? Compared to yesterday, my body somehow says "yes."

This is the crazy part of being a mammal.

I made the choice Thursday to walk from a train stop up to a Polish restaurant where Brandi and her work friends (but good work friends, Diane and Ryan) planned on tucking away the heaviest potato-and-veal-based foods Eastern Europe has to offer. It was about minus fifteen degrees Fahrenheit, and I had the option of waiting for the bus, but Chicago bus drivers have the same "meh" attitude you saw in the Soviet Union.

"It's not as though they have to stand out in the open," they might say, and they would be right, because the CTA saw fit to provide shelters every mile or so with roofs and walls that only leave a two foot gap at the bottom, so the wind chills only your feet, ankles, knees and lower thighs. Most have advertisements that you can read over and over again while you curse your god and wait for the bus that never seems to arrive.

I walked about forty minutes and saw a bus come only once, when I was about a half a block away from the restaurant. True irony? or just the Alanis Morisette style of terrible events that nobody wants to happen to them? By that time, the cold had killed the battery in my iPod, which went from a 50% charge to 20% to dead in the span of about a minute after I took it out of my coat pocket. If you're like me, you never pay attention to the optimal operating temperatures of electronic devices when you buy them because you so rarely come close to them. Next time, I'll probably keep it on the inside.

Of course, I didn't realize that cold had killed the little music player at the time, so when I got to the restaurant--first, as the rest of our small party was running late--I pulled it out, trying to figure out how I could plug in my USB to charge it. It was so cold, the glass on the front began to acquire condensation, and then that condensation began to ice up. Remembering what water can do to electronics, I treated the player like a hypothermia victim and stashed it close to my belly. It worked. The little guy is still alive and kicking to this day.

This is the great part of being a mammal: saving electronics with your own belly warmth.

I look forward to the springtime, when my antlers begin to grow and I am forced to spar with my fellow males over the attentions of the females who will bear our young. Luckily, unlike some species I don't care to mention (spiders), they will not eat our heads when we mate.

This, too, is the great part of being a mammal.