Locals endure the Polar Vortex

By Monica Nigon on January 9, 2014

The weather turned severe this past week as temperatures plunged to well below zero. Chicago experienced a high temperature of minus 11 degrees with a windchill of minus 34. Schools were closed across the Midwest and residents ordered to stay out of the bitter cold. Temperatures are expected to rise as the week progresses and the cold breaks; quite a relief to the people who spent hours a day boiling water simply to throw it in the air and watch it turn to snow.

“It was so cold on Monday that one of my nipples literally cracked,” a Minnesota man said Tuesday. That didn’t stop the man from going completely naked the next day due to the temperatures that shot above zero.

The superintendent of a school in a small Wisconsin town decided to cancel school for the whole week, although she admitted it was because she had waited all week for her sauna to warm up.

“God, it’s been balls cold here all week, and the moment I get my sauna fixed it becomes a heat wave,” the superintendent, who wished to remain anonymous so no one could interrupt her sweat cleanse, said Wednesday.

Students in the area haven’t been too pleased with their days off of school. This isn’t like the snow days of yore when young kids went sledding and drank hot chocolate and high schoolers went sledding and added schnapps to their hot chocolate. Young people were confined indoors with the parents they were already starting to despise due to too much time together.

“Christmas is fricking over,” an area father said, “and if these kids don’t get the hell out of this house soon, I just….I just don’t know.”

Temperatures as the cold spell breaks

Although the “Polar Vortex” is set to move out of the northern states by the end of the week, the International Weather People have come up with new guidelines to keep people safe around the nation.

The IWP listed several typical signs and symptoms that suggest you may be cold and should seek shelter or heavier clothing. These include redness of the extremities, numbness in the toes and fingers, watering of the eyes, chattering of teeth, a longing for summer, the impulse to jump into fire, thoughts that maybe Hell wouldn’t be such a bad place, unstoppable sobbing, and major depression. These of course should not be confused with the symptoms of lumbar spinal stenosis, a condition that, similar to being cold, can cause total paralysis.

Furthermore, the IWP requires a certain number of prerequisites to be a resident of a cold climate. If a prospective or current resident does not meet these requirements, the IWP suggests that individual either make the best of it or get the #$%* out.  Firstly, a cold-weather dweller should not care at all about his or her appearance. This person should be able to wear an extremely unflattering puffy coat without reservations. He or she shouldn’t like their face too much because a scarf will perpetually cover it. This person should be willing to either wipe snot on their mittens or master what is widely referred to as the “farmer blow,” in which one propels snot at a high velocity from one’s nostrils to the ground, doing one’s best to avoid his or her own clothing and the shoes of others. A resident of these cold zones should also be willing to gain a lot of weight, possibly consuming entire sticks of butter, to add insulation to their vital organs. Basically, the IWP reports that if a resident gets obnoxious looks from tan people from the west coast and denied service in high-end stores, he or she is right on point with their stay-warm tactics.

An ideal outfit (IWP suggest adding a matching hat)

 

You can find more information about the IWP’s guidelines by checking out their webpage at justgetdrunk.com.

Please check your daily weather alerts to stay safe in these cold, bleak times, and remember that we’re probably

 not even halfway through this.

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