Get me outta here!

Hell.

Hot or cold?

I believe that hell is personalized for the displeasure of each individual guest. That is why it is no surprise that 40 degrees below zero, the current temperature, is my own personal hell.

Why would I say something like that?

Glad you asked!

Earlier this winter I noticed a draft coming underneath our back door. I taped it up with good old red duct tape, which stopped the draft. This red duct tape is now covered in ice crystals. Yes, there are ice crystals forming inside my house; and not just there either. Our mentally challenged handyman has an incredibly poor work ethic and has been asked to fix our window…over four months ago. I understand that he has brain issues and his mother is most likely his sister, which probably caused his…umm…current mental state, but now the window is coming open from the end that is supposed to be attached to the wall and more, yes, MORE ice crystals are getting into my house. Our heater is holding up thus far, but heating fuel costs big bucks and I don’t want to use more than I have to.

Yesterday Beth’s father and I changed the transmission fluid because the cold made it really hard to shift gears in our manual transmission SUV. Earlier in the year we attached a battery heater and an oil-pan heater to make sure that our car would start even in the dead of winter. This morning our car would not start. All bets are off at 40 below. I am told now that it would have started if we had a block heater in it the car would have started. How the hell am I supposed to know that? Cars don’t need to be plugged in where I come from.

Let’s keep the fun going!

More than 20 below, or should I say less than 20 below…if its colder than 20 degrees below zero, the kindergartners do not get to go outside for lunch recess. Part of my job is to carry lunchboxes, open milks and ketchup packets, zip-up jackets, put on mittens, and supervise the small ones while they eat and then play outside. This becomes a problem when we can’t go outside. You would think that, since this probably happens every winter, they would have some sort of indoor playground the wild animals could play on when it got too cold. Not at my school. During an indoor kinder lunch recess I am forced to play games like Red light/Green light, Duck-duck-goose, and Simon-says (all fun) in the dance studio, and do a little kid exercise video in THE MIDDLE OF THE HALLWAY. There isn’t a class where I can hide my embarrassment from all of the other adults and judging preteens. There I am, in the hall, dancing with 20 kids and a cartoon koala.

Yes, a cartoon koala.

Why me?

It’s so cold that the Internet is not currently working. The Internet is actually frozen. I didn’t think this was possible. But in a 40 degree below zero hell…anything can happen.

(Written at 9:00am Alaska time, on Word in the midst of extreme boredom)