Frigid Memories

“It’s 6:15 AM and minus six degrees.”

These were the wonderful words coming from my alarm clock on this beautiful Monday morning. Morning radio DJs should learn that this isn’t the kind of motivation we need to get out of bed on Monday morning after getting in late the night before. They should say things like, “Good morning, there’s only four more days until Friday.” Or maybe they could kick off the day with something like, “Well, it’s minus six degrees, but Spring is only four months away.” I doubt either of those lines would have really fired me out of bed much earlier. I guess there really isn’t much to say on a cold Monday morning besides, “Get your lass ass out of bed and deal with it.” That is exactly what I did, kind of like a robot.

A few years ago, after graduating from grad school, I was talking with a friend from home about how it’s going to be an adjustment getting back into the real world and going to work early every morning at the same time after living the flexible graduate student lifestyle for a year and half. He calmed my fears by saying, “You just get used to, day after day, you pop out of bed and do the same thing over and over.”

“You mean like a robot?”
“Exactly.”

I’ve lived in the Vail Valley of Colorado for about sixteen months now (being a robot the whole time, thank you) and the experience has been nothing short of freezing. I remember getting in my car one morning last year and looking at the digital thermometer in the car - it read minus 22 degrees. Before this sobering day, I thought temperatures that low could only be read by the finest of scientific equipment, but apparently my low-tech car thermometer had no problem breaking this less than desirable news to me on that fine morning.

Minus 22 degrees is the kind of cold that immediately stops your heart when you walk outside and your lungs collapse inside your chest until you’re left gasping for air in the fetal position on the front doorstep. Ok, it’s a little less dramatic than that, but before that fateful day last year, I thought these obnoxious temperatures could only be reached on planets like Pluto (I know, I know) or possibly Jupiter.

So the reason for my reluctance to spring out of bed on Monday was a late night caused by a trip to Denver to see a rookie quarterback debut at Invesco Field. Though the temperature was a bit higher than minus 22 for the Seahawks-Broncos evening match-up, my feet turned into a couple of dumbbells lifted by Tatum Bell before the game. Despite the dumbness of my lower body, the game was fantastic mainly because of being lucky enough to score tickets in the front row of the stadium. I became very jealous of the benches for the players that have those foot warmers in the bottom. They should have those for the fans also - at least for the front row.

I could have easily heckled Jake Plummer or the rest of the Broncos bench, but in light of a recent outburst by an unnamed Seinfeld character, I decided against it. Plummer would have had to shoot back by calling me an overprivileged white guy or something - probably wouldn’t have gotten as much press.

Give John Poole some of those toe-warmer things and some moderate heckling at poolejohn@gmail.com