Husbands Don’t Fare As Well In The Cold

To say it’s been cold lately is a complete understatement. Pipes have frozen, teeth have chattered, geese have pimpled. At one point, I stuck my head in the freezer to warm my ears. It was cold. Now as it turns out, cold is a relative term.

My wife is from North Dakota. Apparently, it’s not technically cold there until your pupils crystallize. The dog, I feared, would learn this the hard way. For the record, my wife loves the dog and cares for the dog a great deal. That is never in doubt. She just comes from a part of the country where if the dog wants outside in 5 degree weather, you let it out. After all, it’ll get cold later and you don’t want the dog going potty then. I was sure this works very well for northern dogs. My dog, however, is from the south and somewhat unstable to boot, two completely unrelated issues.

So, to set the stage, it was single digit temperature and the dog would whine to go outside. Small bladder? Possibly. Death wish? Unlikely, that dog has it made. Anticipating a frozen bunny, perhaps even the one that taunts her just outside the range of her invisible fence? I’m going with that one. I hear the door open and Lily goes out. Five minutes pass. I yell, “Is the dog outside?”

My wife replies, “Yes.”

Five more minutes pass. “Don’t you think you should let her in?”

She replies, “She’s not at the door.”

Now I’m quite positive that is because Lily is frozen to a tree, probably by her tongue since you never know what that dog will do. So, I take a peek. She’s happily playing in the sun glistening snow. My wife sees me looking out the window.

“You know she has fur. I watch her closely while she’s out, and if she gets cold, she’ll come to the door.”

“I agree she has fur and you watch her, but this is Lily we’re talking about,” I said as I opened the door and called for her. The moment I saw her, I knew my wife was right, again. She ran inside and headed straight for the bedroom. That’s when I noticed my wife had been saying something.

“Did you wipe her paws?” she scowled. “Why do you think the towel was at the door? Do you ever listen?”

“My ears were cold. It’s hard to hear that way.”

The moral of this story is that cold is relative. Dogs can go outside in the cold as long as a loving mother is watching over them, seeing as they have fur and all. Husbands can also go outside, but they don’t fare as well, seeing as they don’t have fur and all. And last but not least, it’s time to get a new comforter, and flowers.