Rise and shine, Evansville. Rise and shine. Not that I wish to imply that you’ve been sleeping in too late. No one is more deserving of a rest, and all the snow days in the world would have gone to waste, until… Well, let’s just say your time has come again.
So wake up. Wake up and get ready for work.
The recent cold snap that broke out across Indiana has been a breath of fresh, cold, actually way too cold, ow it hurts air. Despite the absurdly inconvenient timing, blocking the first week of school after Christmas and taking out power in several places, it was fun for the first few days. It’s snow! We didn’t get much snow this winter, and a winter without snow is like an autumn without pumpkins- Crummy, depressing, and totally wasted.
Nothing comes free, though, and there are many unforeseen consequences. So I’m going to talk about things that happened, whether you know it or not, and what you should check for now that the world is thawing out.
If you’ve been snowed in all week, the first thing you should do before going back to work is run your car. Cold does wonky things to electronics, and most modern cars have a lot of systems. By running your car, you’re giving it a chance to warm up and charge the battery before taking it on the road. The last thing you want is to be stranded because the battery died, or some other system just wasn’t ready. Just like people, cars need a chance to stretch before running.
Which leads me to my next point- Warm up. If you’ve been staying in bed, or on the couch, or even just holding out indoors, chances are you haven’t been getting as much exercise as you usually do. Take a minute to stretch your muscles- Your body will thank you.
This next one is more calling out myself- Get your sleep schedule in gear. Despite the horribly paraphrased G-Man speech at the beginning, I haven’t been too diligent on my sleep schedule over the last week or so. If you’ve been getting up at inconsistent times, going to sleep at midnight, waking up and then staying in bed for several hours, chances are you’re gonna have a tough time reacclimating to the normal schedule. Take a minute to think about what you need to do. Lay everything out, figure out the best time to go to sleep and put some effort into putting it into action.
I know it’s hard to go to bed on time- Even if I didn’t have a medical reason why I don’t get tired, I’d still run myself ragged doing pointless things before sleep. The last week has been horrible for that, I know, but the world is getting back into the normal swing of things- It’s time to put the phone out of reach. Crank up that alarm. Try setting a new alarm tone- Sometimes changing the first sound you hear is enough of a change to make a difference.
And please, please oh please, don’t forget to eat. If you’ve been stuck inside all week, you didn’t need to burn off as many calories as normal. That will not last. I have an absurdly high metabolism (Another medical thing) but I still got used to eating slightly less, and now I’m hungry and I’m just using this as an excuse to talk about how hungry I am. Argh!
And being in the cold, your body will run hotter to maintain homeostasis- Or, just stay warm. Keep some calorie dense food in your car in case you feel hungry or need to stay outside for longer than expected.
This leads me into something pretty serious- Scrape the frost off of your car. The first accident I ever got into was because I didn’t scrape the ice off of the windshield. If you don’t go outside to start your car until you need to leave you might think that you just have to deal with that to get to work.
Your safety is worth more than being on time. Take a few minutes to scrape off your front windshield- If your boss isn’t a heartless monster, they’ll understand. It’s better to be late than to risk never making it at all.
On that somber note, my final piece of advice for how to deal with the cold is to have fun with it. Laugh at things. Play around in the snow, break some ice… It’s really fun to punch through ice with your fists. Kick it around, it’s water!
We might not get another chance to play around in snow like this for a long time. Enjoy it while it lasts.
The right attitude in the wrong place can make all the difference in the world.
