Wednesday 4 August 2010

The Unreasonable Coldness of Being

Oh, Lardy, Lardy, I wish I were sitting on that Fox's Glacier Glacier right now. It is too hot to move. I envy those in the south of England their recent thunderstorm, I'm prepared to storm the met offices of CBC if they are lying to me about the forthcoming rain.

Now, whilst I am a hot person, Alex and I have a theory about cold people, or in fact, anyone who has some kind of 'special need' as it were. If you go out in public, then you should, like any follower of Lady and Lord Baden-Powell, Be Prepared. You don't go to someone's house and expect them to supply you with insulin if you're diabetic, if you have small children, you normally take a supply of nappies and other assorted accoutrements with you, so why does someone who knows in advance they are freezing in the middle of summer at say, 25°, not bring warm gear with them? I mean, I get that ANY of us can be caught out, I myself had to ask for painkillers the last time I visited Sleepy Mansions, and of course, there are certain things it's reasonable for a host to supply, water, extra blankets for the bed in the winter for example, coffee, toilet paper, wine, internet access.

Likewise, Alex came up with the example of gluten intolerance. She frequently has people visiting her shop asking about what they can feed their guests who are coming for dinner and who have gluten intolerance. Again, it's a matter of degree. If I invite a vegetarian to dins, I would cook something without meat. One tries to remember one's individual friends' peccadilloes, Sleepy can't be doing with the pig flesh, Susie doesn't like mushrooms, that kind of thing.

But gluten-free tucker is expensive and hard to find, and if you have a doctor's note, you can claim your gluten-free nosh against tax, ergo, take it with you.

Or, if you don't have enough foresight to plan for your own special need, then at the very least, pre-establish a completely off-the-wall persona with random, peculiar behaviour, for example, this would be an advance warning indicator, some kind of foreign accent that comes and goes....ahh, right.
Hmmmm.....

Oops, I thought I'd better add that I am absolutely NOT talking about Dawn here, who, whilst being a colder-than-me person is the absolutely perfect guest and travelling companion and brings her own jumpers.

2 comments:

Sleepy said...

Don't even get me started on that one!
Honestly!

Anonymous said...

my students are always cold. The building where I work is old and has an awful heating/air conditioning system. It is either freezing cold or sickly hot (no open windows allowed or there aren't any). There have been times where it was so sickly hot with dead air that I have wanted to pass out, sweat pouring down my face. Now, granted, I tend to be hot more than cold. But still. The thermostat is saying 91F or some such. The students, without exception, are cold. This is odd.
- Karen