Today is a ridiculously cold day in Austin, Texas. The last time I checked, it was about 28 degrees F outside. It might be warmer now, but I ain’t moving to find out. Is this actually cold, though? (h/t to Mike for inspiring this pontification.)

I remember two people that I met during my freshman year of college, when I moved from San Antonio to Houston and, pretty much for the first time in my life, met people who didn’t think of air conditioning as something that every building obviously has.

First, there was the girl from Minnesota who, whenever the temperature dipped below 40 (which it seemed to do more than a few times), proceeded to get in the face of everyone she saw demanding to know why they thought this was cold when it was -10 degrees where she was from, and who then proceeded to run around in the quad in shorts and a t-shirt yelling “THIS ISN’T COLD!!!!” (I may be amalgamating multiple distant memories into one Nordic ice queen, but my point stands.) She ended up catching a really bad cold, but I’m sure that was entirely coincidental.

Then, there was the guy from the Fort Lauderdale, FL area. When spring arrived, and the temperature was a brisk and delightful 72 degrees and the wind wasn’t out of the east (people who have lived in Houston know what I mean), I decided to go outside to enjoy nature’s bounty to its fullest. He immediately went inside to put on a sweater, cursing the cold.

My final observation is that -40 degrees is the point at which human skin will almost instantly freeze if exposed. Due to a quirk of the conversion tables, -40 degrees F and -40 degrees Celsius are the same temperature.

My point is that unless it’s -40 degrees out, “cold” is mostly relative. It’s freaking cold in Austin right now, so shut up.