Being Cool

This morning, in the kitchen, when I gave Dorothy a hug, she complained that I felt cold. She wasn't wrong. I had finished my shower, as I do occasionally, with a full minute of cold, cold, cold, brrrrr, cold water. 

You're wondering why I would do that. I told you a couple of years ago. You just forgot.

This is how it goes. You do your usual cozy-dozy five minutes with the taps adjusted just right. Then you remember the bizarre doctrine (probably spread by a Russian troll) that finishing cold will give you a buzz, wake you up, and get you running right for the rest of the day. Sure it will. Putin is snickering all the way to the Kremlin.

But what if there is something to it? Then OK, you're going to do it; nah wait till tomorrow maybe; yah...nah...yah...nah, back and forth for a couple of minutes. Finally you remember that when you chicken out you feel like a slug until the next shower, and if you go ahead and do it, it only hurts for a little while. Then you go for it, shut the hot off and wait with your eyes squeezed tight for the chill to hit . When it comes, 288 muscles spasm in unison, including the iliacus, articularis genus, and flexor carpi radialis. Don't believe me? Ask Wikipedia. Then you start counting with your jaws clenched, one Mississippi, two Mississippi... on the way to sixty bloody Mississippi, which feels like it will never come because you are trapped in a relativistic time warp while you punish your belly and your back and your head, shifting position every ten Mississippis in case something was missed and is getting warm. 

Finally you arrive at the beautiful Mississippi delta and you turn off the tap and discover that you are alive and happy and a hug is waiting in the kitchen.

Trust me. I'm Canadian.
I know about this stuff.

Things go better
when you aren't hot all the time.