Unrelated anecdote: my first semester at Iowa State University back in 1991, one of my classmates was a Scottish exchange student. He was a nice enough guy (and he’ll be called “guy,” because damned if I can remember his name), but he was exactly the sort of guy I should have stayed far away from. The reasons? He was tall, blue-eyed, blond, athletic… in short, when he was around, apparently my own personal cloaking device engaged and I suddenly became *amazingly* invisible to the female of the species, rather than just my usual slightly out of focus. After a while, this became as annoying as you might expect, so, being a perfectly rational young man I began to take delight in any misfortune that might befall him. But *of* *course,* very few misfortunes came his way. Bah.
Anyway, come late September or early October, the summer (those of you who summered in the midwest know what hellish conditions are implied here) finally began to break very, very slightly. After sundown, it was almost cool from time to time. So late one afternoon I was walking back from class with the guy when, of friggen’ course, a gaggle of females came the other way and of course he and they had to have a long drawn-out and giggly conversation. My cloaking field engaged at maximum power and I disappeared from view. I observed the interactions (having no actual place within the interactions) and realized that the half dozen or so female students were also all exchange students from places such as France and Italy. They all seemed to think that the guy was SPLOOSH, and he clearly knew it. It was all very grating, as you might expect, and I kinda tuned out.
Anyway, at one point a few minutes in, the topic turned to the weather, and how nice it was that it was no longer dangerously hot and humid. It soon turned to a discussion of the forthcoming winter, and it quickly dawned on me that *none* of them knew what winter in central Iowa was going to be like, which seemed like a substantial failure in planning. Finally, the guy remembered that I was there (and that I had grown up relatively close to the area) and he asked me what winter was like. I recall being interested in the girls reactions at that point… they all reacted with shock as if they were seeing me fade into existence. Anyway, I informed them that they could expect snowdrifts ten feet high and temperatures down to minus forty. I don’t know what reaction I expected from this revelation, but I was met with blank and uncomprehending stares. “Is that Fahrenheit or Centigrade?” someone asked.
“Yes,” I answered accurately. I then had to explain that minus forty was where the systems met up. And then I had to explain that, no, I wasn’t kidding, that I had experienced minus sixty wind chill from time to time. Blank stares turned to looks of horror. I have always hoped that the horror came from the recognition of what winter was going to be like, rather than the horrific comparison of the American troll before them with the Scottish Adonis they were all gushing over, but… who knows.
Anyway, I then turned to the guy and asked him what winter clothes he had with him. He plucked at the light wind breaker he was wearing at the moment. “No, I mean, what clothes do you have for when winter really gets here.” In other words, like the Seattle anarchists, what plans and preparations did he make to survive what was coming, the future that he intentionally set out into. And he assured me that, indeed, he felt confident that his thin little jacket was going to be sufficient. The girls all seemed to think that the guy had the right idea.
For a few seconds I probably looked like the gears in my head were grinding and throwing sparks. And then I laughed. Boy howdy did I laugh. When at last I gasped for a breath, the only thing I could think to say was to quote Reverend Kane:
I don’t know if they believed me. I doubt they heeded me. But I had me a good laugh, and that was the important thing. And now I look at the “garden” planted by the Antifa thugs in their little autonomous zone, and I laugh in much the same way. This time the laughter is tinged with sadness… the foreign exchange students could – and of course did – simply go to the mall and buy coats. And if they didn’t, the only people to suffer would be them. But in Seattle? When they start to starve and loot and pillage, they will harm a whole lot of innocents in the process.
Note about the guy: the only other thing I can really remember about him was he kept singing “I’m too sexy for my -” and fill in the blank. Nobody knew what the hell he was on about, but he assured us that it was a popular song back Europe-way, that it would soon hit American shores (it did) and that Right Said Fred would be the farthest thing from a one-hit wonder… they’d be a culturally dominant force for generations to come. Heh.
