cold update

Just thought I'd update for anyone reading this outside of Canada (can't think of who that may be, but who knows) about the season.

It's winter, officially. How do I know this? Well my truck has been a frozen block in the parking lot for 48 hours, covered in a grey-coloured frost. It looks like it has freezer burn. Someone told me it reached -40 at some point over the last two days. I believe them. It's nothing to be shocked about, but that first inhale of -40 air each winter does produce that sensation.

I pulled my hockey gear out of my inanimate vehicle yesterday and the whole bag was frozen stiff. A big chunky block. It took minutes to squeeze it through the broken 4-runner passenger seat that barely bends forward. The material of the hockey bag sounded like a thick paper bag crumpling. I grabbed at my composite sticks and they burned and stung the flesh on my fingers. "DAMN!" Hockey was a little painful, as I only had about 45 minutes to thaw my shit out.

For some reason, when it gets this cold -- I'm talking hand-gets-stuck-to-your-keys-cold -- whenever I walk past a light post or a road sign, I have this sick urge to stick my tongue to it. I have no explanation. It makes me cringe. I watched a kid lose his tongue on a slide when I was five and the image has never left me. He was crying. He ripped his face from the frozen object at -40. There was blood all over the snow, the slide and the kids face. And he was just screaming.

Also when I was young, I would often wonder if you could see steam coming from your ass when you farted in frigid temperatures. I got a friend to watch once. You don't fart steam. So if you see me smiling gleefully in -40, maybe stay a few steps away... at least till the smile subsides.

Took the Frankenstein cables to the beast tonight and got her running after two days of inactivity. Took her out for a ride and filled her up. Guess what? Gas is under a buck in Yk! Amazing. Of course, I took the beast to the only station that was still over a buck because it was the only spot I could get a corndog. Mindy spoke about watching gas prices go over that milestone number back when he was working the Truckstop in Enterprise years ago.

It's about g'damn time.

So I had to stock up on candies, scratch-n-win tickets and corndogs to make up for all the money I was saving.