Oh, hey there. I couldn’t help but notice that you were staring at my legs. No, you did not slip on a patch of ice and somehow wake up on a tennis court in the middle of August in Boca Raton. It’s still the dead of winter, and you’re still, unfortunately, in Buffalo.
Why then, you ask, am I dressed from the waist down like Utah Jazz legend John Stockton circa the late 1980s, or as if I started to get dressed before leaving the gym but got distracted halfway through and accidentally walked out with no pants on? Because it’s my thing. Some people are into old cars or model trains or Civil War reenactments. But me? I’m the guy who wears shorts all year round, no matter how cold it gets. It’s just who I am.
You think I’m going to let a few snow squalls and a bit of polar vortex stop me from showing off my glorious gams? Think again. My legs are like the United States Postal Service: Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these ham hocks from the swift completion of their appointed rounds, which is to make others feel inferior in their weather-appropriate thermal outerwear.
“But aren’t you freezing?” you’re probably wondering, without actually asking. Not anymore I’m not. You see, while everyone’s been wasting their time worrying about global warming, I’ve been preparing for the real threat to humanity: global cooling. Over the years, I’ve built up a tolerance to the cold by wearing shorter and shorter pants each winter, starting with a pair of capris that I borrowed from my now ex-wife and working my way up to the short shorts you can’t seem to take your eyes off of right now.
Sure, there were times when I nearly lost my legs to frostbite, but I fought through it, and now I’m able to withstand freezing temperatures from my ankles to my upper thighs. My body has adapted by developing double-coated leg hair, similar in texture and color to the fur of a Bernese Mountain Dog. Like Wim Hof, I also use controlled breathing techniques to regulate my internal temperature, except in my case it’s only in my legs.
People often ask me, “If you’re so set on only wearing shorts, why not move someplace warm, like Florida or Hawaii, where you won’t stick out like a sore thumb, or like two severely wind-chapped legs from a pair of 20-year-old grey Russell gym shorts, which are somehow sweat-stained even though it’s -5 degrees Fahrenheit, with a wind chill factor that makes it feel more like -20?”
Because that would defeat the purpose of wearing shorts year-round. I would just be some schmuck in shorts in a sea full of shorts-wearing schmucks. And as the old saying goes, “In the land of the fully clothed, the half-pantsed man is king.” Trust me, it’s a real saying. I know because I say it all the time to anyone who’ll listen.
I can tell by the look on your face that you think I’m crazy. That, or you’re trying to think of a way to get out of this conversation with a grown man wearing whatever the male version of Daisy Dukes are before your body shuts down from hypothermia (they’re called David Dukes, by the way). Yeah, well, we’ll see who’s crazy when the earth freezes over à la Snowpiercer and I’m the last one left standing, with snow up to my knees and not a care in the world. And when that day comes, you will all bow before my beautiful weatherproof bare legs.