Cold Florida temperatures make northerners superheroes

Living in one of this nation’s colder states has one clear benefit: it makes us appear virtually indestructible to the feeble people living south of us in warmer states. In some warped way, it makes us superheroes.
I learned of our superhero abilities several weeks ago in Florida, when my family and I went to Disney World for a week-long vacation. During the early part of our trip, Florida was experiencing some of its coldest temperatures in more than 20 years, and natives there were in pain, deep freezing pain you could say.
Just how cold did it get? Zero degrees? Below zero?
Don’t laugh. It went down to the upper 20s during a few overnights, moving up to the lower 30s in the mornings, and only in the 50s in the afternoons.
These temperatures sound heavenly to us, especially as we experience another cold spell that brings us below-zero temperatures and colder, with the dreaded wind chill factored in, but to people accustomed to 50s as a low, they seemed like punishment from the heavens for some sin they may have committed. (If I had to speculate on the sin, one could argue punishment was finally served for the 2000 election. Both sides of the issue could then argue about the punishment being too small or too great; therefore, it would still remain an issue of debate.)
We arrived in Orlando at 10 p.m. to a balmy 30-degree temperature. I say balmy because we left Wisconsin earlier in the day with temperatures in the single digits and this temperature was already a big improvement, although it wasn’t the temperature we had been hoping for.
The next morning wasn’t any better, but it was still warm enough for us to shed the outside liners of our winter jackets, especially knowing temperatures later in the day would be like an early warm spring day in Wisconsin. None of us wore our winter caps.
At Disney’s Hollywood Studios that day, it was easy to spot the natives. They were bundled under what seemed like a closet full of their warmest clothes and still looked like they were freezing a thousand deaths.
They also complained. “It’s so cold. The world is going to end. I’d rather be in hell where I know it’s at least warmer,” natives said to us.
And then they’d see me, in just a hoodie sweatshirt having already gotten rid of the jacket after determining the temperature was too warm for it. “You must be from Minnesota,” those people would say to me.
“No, Wisconsin,” I’d answer, and they’d say something like “Close enough.” At that point in the conversation I could have gotten into a long diatribe about the many reasons Wisconsin is vastly superior to Minnesota, and why “close enough” doesn’t apply when comparing the two states, but the Favre factor came into play. For this football season, and next year too if Brett Favre doesn’t decide/undecide/decide to retire, all my grudges against the state to our west were on hold. Bashing Minnesota was not going to take place.
So instead, I simply said these temperatures seem warm to us.
It was simple, but it made me seem like a superhero to that person. I’m sure every one of them was thinking the same thing:
“Look. It’s a man without a jacket and two dozen layers of clothes. It’s a man who’s basking in this heatless sun as though he has some special ability to extract even the tiniest fringes of warmth. No, it’s Northern Man, the man whose body produces heat like a furnace and doesn’t need the sun to survive.”
Had I been single and looking, native women looking to get warm could have been mine for the taking. Of course, I would never use superhero powers for less than noble purposes, so I would have had to politely reject these women.
The next few days were similar temperature-wise, and showing off my superhero abilities was just as fun as enjoying days of 70-plus temperatures could have been. On the third day, my 4-year-old son, Braden, and I went swimming in the heated outdoor swimming pool in the morning. We were the only ones in the pool, inspiring others walking by to look at us with awe.
That was until a family from Canada decided to get in the pool with us. Whereas I kept myself in the water, because the air temperature was pretty cold, this family jumped in and out of the pool as though it were 90 degrees outside, making me seem like a superhero imposter to the people who once thought I was indestructible.
Damn Canadians.
I didn’t feel better until watching the news that night, when a segment was devoted to the local school district’s decision to allow parents to keep their kids home from school because of the cold temperatures. I guess kids there must pray for cold days, much like kids here hope for snow days.
By the next day, temperatures were nearly back to normal for Florida standards. And I was starting to feel too warm, proving every superhero has a weakness.