Last week, the overnight temperature dipped to 35 degrees.
But I shouldn’t complain because my friend reported that where he lives, the thermometer plummeted to 25.
BELOW ZERO!
But with the wind-chill factor, he added, it was minus 55.
While we’re fortunate to be living in sunny San Diego, he resides in the frozen hills of Montana.
That’s where the climate remains ideal for only a few months out of the year.
I know how lovely it can be there because I make an effort to pay a visit.
In July.
When airliners can still land on concrete.
I told my friend that while it was 55 below in Montana, the temperature here in San Diego was a balmy 78.
But with the wind-chill factor, I added, it was still 78.
When the weather finally improves there, my friend likes to take advantage of the great outdoors, enjoying golfing, hiking and river rafting.
The rest of the year, however, while ice jams up the river, the golf course has 5 feet of snow, and avalanche warnings prohibit hiking, he’s inside tossing logs into the fireplace.
I also called my brother in Brooklyn who’s distressed because he’s bracing for another blizzard.
The last time he was faced with such a storm, his car wound up buried in a mountain of snow. He spent well over an hour shoveling so he could free it up. Eventually, he removed enough snow to learn it wasn’t his car.
I told my brother I could identify with his problems because we had our own trouble, what with the pool heater malfunctioning.
So we opted to picnic on the beach instead.
We made sandwiches and salads, brought along some apple pie and libations, and reclined in beach chairs while being swathed with a gentle sea breeze.
I also made sure I had my cellphone so I could check on both my friend and brother.
My wife says I’m only calling them to flaunt our weather and underscore the disparity.
She claims my so-called concerns are actually what psychiatrists tend to call “schadenfreude.”
“It means taking pleasure from another person’s misfortune,” she laments.
But I tell her my repeated calls mean I’m simply worried about their safety.
“And I suppose those calls,” she argues, “have nothing to do with the continuing feud you have with them about who lives in the more idyllic place.”
She claims my motives are less than noble, suggesting it was insensitive to have offered to mail them a snow shovel.
But I explained that the comment was in jest and those FaceTime calls I tend to make were simply to give them an opportunity, if only vicariously, to see what sunshine and solace actually look like.
But she questions my intentions and suggested I was rather tactless and unfeeling, even while confessing that we too can occasionally experience setbacks due to weather extremes.
“You complained to your friend,” she protested, “that you had to prune the rose bush because the falling temperatures caused some deterioration.”
“That was totally factual,” I assured.
But she said it wasn’t a question of accuracy that had her concerned, but that I had equated my gardening issues with my friend’s recent surgery.
“Perhaps there might be a remote parallel,” she argued, “but pruning roses due to the cold is not proportionate to toe amputation because of frostbite.”
So she had me surrender my cellphone claiming I was being too callous.
“We’re not exactly immune to our own occasional climate issues,” she reminded as she leaned back in the beach chair, brushed a little sand off her shoulders, and applied some more sunscreen.
Erdos is a freelance humor columnist. him at [email protected].
