First off, I live in New Hampshire. We have more then 12″ of snow on the ground and the high today is expected to be 25 degrees Fahrenheit. My recommendation to you is to leave you jacket in the car. Always.
Lets look at the facts. Your home is warm, you car is warm (or will be in a minute) and your destination is likely to be warm. So why are you wearing a jacket? How long does it take you to get from the door to the car? Lets be generous and call it 30 seconds. So, when you are ready to leave you put on a jacket, hat, gloves, and boots and dash outside and jump into your car. How long did it take you to put all that stuff on? 5 minutes?
Now, you are covered from head to toe in 15 pounds of clothes and can barely move. You start up your car, crank up the heat and in a minute or so your car is toasty warm and you are bundled up like a Eskimo headed out for a night of sub-zero hunting.
You arrive at your destination, lets say a restaurant for dinner. You turn off your car and make the 30 second trek from car to door and then what? Spend another 5 minutes taking off all of that extra clothes. Now what do you do with it? If it’s a nice restaurant you can check you clothes and hope they are still there when you leave. If it’s not quite that nice you hold all of that stuff and wait for a table. You then troupe over to the table carrying what looks like a dead body and try to find space to put it at your table. Do you have a coat hook? No? Ok, drape it over your chair. Now what about those gloves? Oh, stuff them into the pockets, tight fit eh? Make some room for the hat. This is when it occurs to you that your hair looks like hell after you pulled a wool cap over it. Whoops!
Wow, seems like a lot of work. Lets look at the alternative, the way I choose to manage it. When the season start to go from fall to winter, I put a nice warm coat into my car. I just tuck it into the trunk or on the back seat. When I’m ready to go out I put on my shoes and dash outside to get into my car. I start up the engine and am on my way. I am now cold, thats right people, I am cold! I will spend 30 seconds outside in the cold and then another minute or so more after I get into my car. I can assure you I won’t die. Then, when I arrive at the restaurant I turn off the car and walk inside the restaurant, again I am cold for 30 seconds. Once my table is called I walk over to it and sit down.
See how easy that was? I’ve not even died! The only trouble is you people keep yelling ‘Don’t you know it’s Winta?’ No one ever says the R in Winter, I assume the weight of the hat and jacket make that impossible. Sometimes people will even yell ‘Aren’t you cold?’ Only the real smart ones can put that sentence together.
Yeah, it’s cold. I’m just not stupid enough to carry all that extra crap with me all over the place. How many sets of hats and gloves or jackets have you lost? Don’t you get tired of that? Just leave it in your car. It’ll be there when you need it, I promise. If your car breaks down or you are going to be outside for a while just grab it and put it on. There is no real reason to be wasting all that time putting it on and off all day long. Your body can handle it.
What’s most important however is that you stop yelling at me. I don’t go around telling you how crazy it is to carry all that crap with you. I’m not making fun when you loose another pair of gloves, so stop trying to dumb me down to your level. If I want to wear my coat, I will. When you say ‘Aren’t you cold?’ what do you want me to do? Smack my forehead and shout ‘O! I knew something wasn’t right’ and then dash to my car and get a coat?
Topslakr
I have this problem all the time as well. People at work used to give me trouble about not wearing a jacket. Usually someone will tell you that you will get sick if you don’t wear a coat (if not directly, then I will bate them in to saying it). I will respond by asking them when the last time they washed their jacket. I have found that most people do not wash their jackets as often as they should, if even at all. After people think about this question they will generally stop bothering you about your jacket wearing habits, and will start questioning their own. It does make me wonder how many people get sick during the winter because they pull their dirty jackets out storage for the colder temperatures.
This post is an absolute gem! ? It hilariously captures the absurdity of the winter jacket dance we all seem to do. The idea of leaving your jacket in the car and braving a few seconds of cold rather than lugging around pounds of winter gear everywhere is genius! It’s like a breath of fresh (albeit chilly) air amidst all the fuss over winter attire. Kudos to the author for sharing this witty and practical perspective! ???