Cold, cold Minnesota

There is no gentle way to put it. So pardon my crudeness. But really, today I was afraid my nuts would freeze and fall off like some over-ripe durians. My cremasteric muscle were working so hard that I think my gonads were retracted to somewhere deep within my thorax. One reason why I hate this time of year. Unlike in Malaysia, when January/February brings the anticipation and excitement of Chinese New Year, fireworks and angpow, here it's just the coldest time of the year. The season after Christmas, when the pretty holiday decorations and lights have been taken down, but the snow keeps coming. Compare that to summer, when trees are green, BBQs are out, and the women are running around in bikinis.

Before I experienced my first winter in Canada in 1998, I never really understood how boogers can freeze. I mean, Calvin (of Calvin and Hobbes) was just being ridiculous, right?

Wrong. Boy was I wrong. The 'wonders' of winter a Malaysian boy had to discover. Your boogers DO freeze when it's cold enough. And they get rock hard. You could probably shape and cut it and mount it on an engagement ring and she wouldn't be the wiser. Oh, and that shock your lungs experience when you step out on a cold day such as today and inhale your first breath of the winter special. Your lungs almost go into a coughing fit (not unlike how one feels stepping off the plane in Malaysia and take the first breath of the humid air, actually). Or how sitting on cold leather car seats feel like sitting on nails (thank goodness for seat warmers). Or how the air is so dry in the winter that you nosebleed, your skin itches, and there's so much static electricity that you shock everyone/everything you touch, and you see sparks when you comb your hair in a dark room. Speaking of static electricity, this reminds of Nawi, a buddy of mine from Malaysia who went to medical school with me in Canada. Being the typical kampung boy, he liked to walk around our student dorm in his sarong and shirt. Sometimes, he'd even go commando. And then one day, he went to the laundry room to use the washer. As he unloaded his laundry, his body came into contact with the metallic washing machine. Unfortunately, because he was commando, the part of his body that came into contact was his most, err, anterior part. His wee-wee. And so he discharged from the tip of his manhood through the thin sarong cloth to the washing machine, and experienced a minor jolt to his nether regions. I found him doubled over, hand on his crotch, uttering unmentionables. I doubt he ever went commando in his sarong again. He's now a surgical registrar in east Malaysia- someday I'll tell the story to his kids.
Anyway, enough digressing. It's cold. Oh, what I'll do for a hot bowl of Asia laksa right now...