November 29, 2010
Though the sun was out this morning, the air was cold. The temperature was in the low 30s as I got out of my car in the parking lot and walked into the building where my cubicle is located. I looked forward to some welcome warmth as I crossed the threshold of the offices…but immediately, I was assailed by a stiff, frigid wind. Not only could I see my misting breath in there, but each breath I exhaled froze in midair and dropped to the floor, where it shattered into shards of ice. Somehow, the air conditioning had been turned up to the maximum setting, converting the offices into a winter wonderland!
Snow swirled through the slate gray light, drifting into glittering piles on the desktops. Several of my co-workers labored on what I thought at first was an ice sculpture…but I quickly realized they were using chisels to carve one of our friends out of a frozen block. Several co-workers gathered around a flaming trash barrel, struggling in vain to get warm. Penguins frolicked in the break room, spinning and sliding on dunes of solid ice.
At first, I thought it was a joyous change of pace. But after just a few moments of exposure to the intense cold, I realized I’d lost all feeling in my fingers. In fact, when I looked, I saw they’d turned gray. The tips were already turning black. Frostbite had struck my extremities and was about to rob me of my typing skills forever. Screaming, I ran back out the door to the only place warm enough to possibly save my fingers and toes: the outside air. Sure enough, as soon as I burst out through the lobby doors, I felt my circulation begin to return. The air on the front portico was no more than 32-35 degrees, but it was positively balmy compared to the numbing cold of the winter wonderland inside the building. With great gasps of relief, I let the heat restore mobility to my digits. I felt like I’d gone from the depths of winter to the height of summer, and pure joy rushed into my heart at the notion. I resolved, from that day onward, to work outside the building instead of inside, accomplishing my tasks far more effectively in the mid-thirties heat than I ever could in the bitterly cold winter wonderland indoors. The penguins followed my lead, coming out to frolic around me as I typed on my laptop and laughed at their merry antics.
