Dadism #1

     "If you're cold, you're not working hard enough."

     The first time I remember my father saying this was one day when working outside I complained it was too cold to work.  To my adolescent mind it was the perfect reason to put of the job that needed doing till at least the spring frost.  This thought was totally logical.  I could freeze to death or at least catch a cold.  People die of the common cold every day.  Here, my father was putting my very life in jeopardy.

     I remember thinking that when I get a family of my own I will never make my kids work when it's cold, and for a while I didn't.  But then, I lived in Phoenix, it never gets cold there.  Now, now I live in Utah and it freaking freezing,and what do I do?  I make my fifteen year old son go out and shovel snow or take the garbage out.  And when he complains what do I say?

     "If you're cold, you're not working hard enough."

     This thought kept popping into my mind as I walked from my car into work today.  It was hovering around 0 degrees today, that's in Fahrenheit not Celsius.  It was dang cold this morning.  But as I gasped for breath and the cold dry air burned in my nostrils I heard my father saying work harder and you will get warm.

     So what do you do when you are stuck sitting in front of a computer screen all day and the office building in which you work insists on running the air conditioning, even though it is below freezing outside?  I haven't the foggiest as I sit here in my winter coat and type.

     In 2010, I could just work harder.  I was doing remodeling in Prescott, AZ, and though it did not get as cold as it is here it would still get below freezing.  Then if I was cold I could just work harder getting the little furnace inside me stoked up and burning calories.  Here, sitting at my desk on my lunch break, lest anyone think me a slacker,  I find the need to sit on my hands at times to keep feeling in my finger tips.

     I guess if I type faster then the blood will flow into my hands warming them.  Or maybe I could stand every once in a while and do jumping jacks.  I tried to bring a space heater in; it blew the fuse shutting down half the floor's outlets.  Which then took 20 minutes till someone from maintenance could locate the proper switch and flip it back on.

     So now I wear those fingerless gloves and a light jacket under my heavy coat just so I am reasonably comfortable.  It's a pain in the but to need to wear so much but it's either that or I go crazy shivering.  I already have enough to drive me insane; four kids, a wife, a job in which I am under employed... the list goes on and on.

     Enough of that.  The point is "If you're cold, you're not working hard enough."