You know how whenever it’s really cold, some asshole always claims “this is nothing” compared to where he’s from? Well, the BBC has interviewed a bunch of those assholes.
Some people profiled by Raffi Berg in what is essentially a trend piece about winter kind of have a point. In Oymyakon, Russia (major industry: reindeer-breeding), it’s so cold that cell phones don’t work (luckily, there’s no service there anyway). You also can’t wear glasses outside, because they will freeze to your face. Other sources, however, just seem like smug winter-snobs. Says one resident of Mouhijarvi, Finland,
Ha! It’s 5pm in Mouhijarvi and the thermometer outside our kitchen window is currently reading -28C. With no cloud cover in sight I would expect the temperature to fall at least a couple of degrees during the evening. Not abnormal here at this time of year.
Ha indeed. Even the English, known for their bad weather, are apparently deemed winter sissies for their road closures. Says BBC News reader Dario More,
Why do the English have this problem every year? Here, in Dresden, at -13C, I drive my car normally on ice and snow.
More also frequently carries his car uphill both ways to car school, all while naked and singing a jaunty tune. Seriously, weather one-upmanship is a popular pastime the world over — and while people in big cities tend to use other forms of discomfort as bragging fodder (subway rides, dangerous neighborhoods), weather-snobbery is one of the only forms of self-aggrandizement actually acceptable in the American Midwest. Which is how I, a lifelong Californian, became a winter snob. After a mere two years in Iowa, I have become forevermore the kind of person who claims not to be really cold until the inside of my nose is freezing, and who talks ad nauseum about that time it was -15 but I went out to dinner anyway. But: I also have some tips, for those of you recently transplanted to colder climes, or for denizens of my home state curious about how the seasonally afflicted live.
Do not buy a windshield cover.