Winter Virgin

My current temporary housemate is a native of a warm state, descended from parents of even warmer nationality, and attended medical school in a tropical foreign country. In short, he’s had no experience whatsoever with “winter” (which he believes has already arrived in the Smallish State) and is completely fascinated by the whole idea.

Almost daily, he comes up with new questions for me about winter. During his first week, he was very interested in Turbopalace heating system, and I got to tell him all about steam radiators, boilers, etc. Later I overhead him on the phone with his wife, saying “… and they burn oil to heat the houses, so every house has some sort of big tank to hold the oil in the cellar… I don’t know how the oil gets into the tank…”

Later, he was curious about “how you get the snow out of the driveway”. He asked how many days it is, following a snow storm, that people generally don’t go to work. He was particularly interested in my collection of ice brushes/scrapers for the car; he found it hard to believe these would be necessary (“Can’t you just turn on the defroster?”), and also thought they’d work better if made of steel, rather than plastic (probably true.)

This morning he noticed a couple of ice-axe pick guards I’d left on a chair while tidying the gear-storage area, and asked what they were. I explained, but his puzzled look never really went away.

Last night it was about 40F out. Housemate came in from parking his car wearing a look of half-excitement, half-terror, and stated “It is fucking COLD out there!!”, in a volume and tone of voice that locals reserve for times when the temperature is in the vicinity –15F range. “You can SEE YOUR BREATH!”, he added, for emphasis.

I don’t think he knows yet about snow tires. I’m thinking that if I use Tom Sawyer techniques, I might be able to get him interested enough in that topic that he will do the labor of putting them my car, while I supervise.