I was telling my son last night how frickin' cold it's going to be today and found myself using that new term "actual temperature". So it went something like this..."it's going to be a high tommorrow of 4 below...well, actual temperature anyway...with the wind chill it will feel like 30 below".
I think the gravity of it was mostly lost on my 14 year old who finally this year started to wear a winter coat again rather than just a hooded sweatshirt on even the coldest days but it struck me as funny. When did we start using the term "actual temperature"? At some point could we just not fathom the scale of it? Something like this...
Dude #1: The high tomorrow is going to be 4 below!
Dude #2: WHAT?!!
Dude #1 (again): Yeah, that's the ACTUAL temperature!
Or, was it because simply saying that it was going to below zero just didn't convey how gosh damn colder than a witch's tit, colder than a well digger's ass in January (or any other old saying my parent's used to use) it really was going to be outside, so we had to come up with something that made it sound even worse. Something like this...
Dude #1: The high tomorrow is going to be 4 below!
Dude #2: WHAT?!!
Dude #1 (again): Yeah, and that's just the actual temperature, with the wind chill it's going to feel more like 30 below!
Either way you slice it, we live in the midwest, so the below zero tempertures, wind chills, and all the ways we can come up with to describe that we are going to freeze our bejeezes off are a part of life! Think I'll get started on post cards to everyone I know in warmer climates saying "WISH YOU WERE HERE". I'm sure they will booking flights for a visit as soon as they can.
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