Science

The Ice Age Has Begun

Ice cream sales plummet

You know that phrase, ‘When hell freezes over?’

Well, it just happened.

Have you ever wondered what it would be like living in the middle of an ice age? Have you ever played that scenario out in your mind? Were you ever motivated to prepare for it? Have you been too preoccupied with thinking about global warming? How much thermal underwear do you own?

Yesterday it got all the way down to 17 degrees (Fahrenheit) in Houston, Texas. Believe it or not, that was a record low temperature. The city practically shut down. People were besides themselves and had no idea what to do. It even snowed and not a single resident of that big city owns a snow shovel (or thermal underwear).

Well, boo-hoo! While those wienie Texans are complaining about the ‘catastrophic cold,’ here where I live on the Great Plains of Turtle Island yesterday’s high temperature was -7 degrees below zero (Fahrenheit) and our low temperature was -28 degrees below zero (Fahrenheit).

And our electricity stayed on all day!

Polar bears were spotted in town walking down the streets heading south.

But to be fair we had our problems, too. School was canceled today; not because of the mountains of snow that have covered the ground for weeks now nor specifically for the Arctic temperatures, but rather because the pipes had frozen at the elementary school.

Have you ever asked an elementary school kid to ‘hold it in all day?’ If you have then you know why they had to cancel school.

Earlier today there came a thunderous banging on my apartment door. Opening the door I saw that it was the apartment manager, a very diminutive woman. I could not believe she was capable of knocking so loudly. She asked me if I would turn on all my faucets to a trickle because the water pipes were starting to freeze.

So for the last few hours my kitchen faucet has been trickling water and I can hear that from my writing desk. Damn it to hell, I’ve been peeing every ten minutes so I finally put on some music to drown out the dripping water. Unfortunately, I put on Chopin’s Prelude in D Flat Major, which is a piano piece designed to evoke the sound of rain drops. That didn’t help so I put on some Phoebe Snow and my bladder was finally able to relax.

If only I had some Caribbean music.

So anyway, I do not have to imagine what an ice age would be like. I merely have to look out the window — and that is why I have been avoiding looking out the window all day. I am also trying to avoid thinking about how nice it would be to be in Texas right now where it is so, so, so, so much warmer. Instead I’m thinking about how nice it would be in Costa Rica or perhaps the Sahara.

I am not one of those scientific conspiracy theorists who are proclaiming that we will soon enter a new ice age. Really, I’m not. Sure, I may have mentioned it a few times but usually it is just in scientific jest. I get off being a contrarian.

But I figure there are countless Americans who are currently wondering what the freaking hell is going on. I happen to be an expert armchair meteorologist so I feel obligated to provide an answer…

You see, Mother Nature is simply giving us a little preview of what it will be like in a hundred years. A sneak peek. She doesn’t want to have to say, “I told you so,” and she certainly doesn’t want me to say, “I told you so.”

And yes, I plan on still being around one hundred years from now. I may be in a different body and a different life so I would not be able to really say, “I told you so,” but I might mysteriously be overcome with an, I-told-you-so-mood. Is that how psychics who predict the future get their intel? I don’t know. I’m just an expert armchair meteorologist.

Have you ever thought about what it would be like to be in the middle of an ice age and you go to the grocery store to stock up on your favorite fresh fruits and vegetables? I didn’t think so. I thought about it today and it is a frightening thought. Like we needed another reason to be pissed off at our local grocery store.

So I then thought about how important it is for all of us to plant our own vegetable gardens. We can’t be dependent on global grocery cartels. This thought was terrifying because I live in an apartment complex and there is no space for me to plant a garden. My next thought was even more terrifying because I realized that if we were in the middle of an ice age it would be too freaking cold for anything in our gardens to grow.

See how important is it for all of us to start planning now? Is the gravity of the situation sinking in?

And what about sex? Earlier today I found myself remembering back to what seems like a hundred years ago. You see, I lost my virginity during a blizzard. (Barry White was playing on the turntable.) Thank God no one got pregnant.

But during an ice age does the human birth rate go up or down? I could not find any scientific data on that. Is the very survival of the human species in jeopardy if the weather we’ve been having for the last few weeks continues indefinitely?

And what about the children? What would it be like to grow up during an ice age? This goes way beyond having penguin pajamas and Disney’s Frozen bedsheets and pillows.

And what about Christmas? Would Christmas become so profoundly anti-climactic that no one bothers with it anymore? How will this affect the children? Will they learn to ski before they learn to walk? Will permanent mittens be invented? As they grow older will Barry White become popular again?

And what about your stock portfolio? Will you be buying stock in ice cream companies or in companies that manufacture thermal underwear?

Have you thought about any of these very important issues? Have you? Well, maybe Mother Nature is trying to get all of us to start thinking about these things. She’s got me thinking about them.

Maybe that’s just me.

Copyright by White Feather. All Rights Reserved. Thanks for playing along.

Speaking of temperatures…