Winter in the magic bus

Let me start by saying that I know that we actually have it pretty easy during the winter months. What passes for winter here in the ArkLaTex is actually pretty mild. I have friends on teh twittah who tweet pictures of the thermometers outside their houses, and the thermometers are showing -40C (which just so happens to be the equivalent of -40F), and here I am with highs in the 50s and lows at night in the 30s. I get it. We have it pretty easy.

However, just as pain is relative, so are things like hot and cold. A couple of years ago, during the summer months, people in New York were bitching about how it was too hot to do laundry and they were just re-wearing the same brown clothes over and over again rather than wash them, and here I was ironing my clothes in 115 degree (in the shade) heat while both of our air conditioners struggled to cool the magic bus to something below the 90 degree mark.

Perhaps the state of our summers is why I am being such a big sissy about the cold this winter. Once you've lived through a few summers in a row of 115 degree (in the shade) heat, you start feeling a little hypothermic when the temperatures hit 50.

If I lived in a regular house with actual insulation, I might not feel so cold inside my house while the heat is blasting me with hot air. However, magic buses (busses, busii?) have almost no insulation. What passes for insulation in most RVs is that 1/4 inch thick styrofoam sheeting shit. I get it, you have to consider weight when you build an RV. RVs with granite countertops? The granite is only 3/4 of an inch thick, at the most. Weight is crucial when you are talking about something you have to power down the road.

However, we don't power ours down the road. As a matter of fact, we are months overdue to disconnect from the grid and run on generator power for a little while. This desperately needs to be done to make sure that the generator is in working order; after an engine sits inactive for a length of time, it doesn't run smoothly. Gasoline turns to petroleum jelly if left in a tank for too long, so we have to burn off old gasoline and add new gasoline so that when the black helicopters come swooping in, we can actually run from them.

Speaking of regular maintenance of an RV, try having to go outside to dump the black water holding tank when it is dark and cold outside. It must be done, because you do NOT want that tank to overflow through the toilet.

I think I have digressed from my original point, which was

Wait, was there a point? Or was I just bitching to anyone who will listen?

Oh yeah, I was trying to talk about what winter is like in a magic bus.

I haven't felt my toes for weeks, unless I have been in the car alone and turned up the heat so that I actually get to defrost my toes. The electric heaters we use to supplement the gas furnace have not stopped running all day long in weeks. I don't have enough sweaters to feel warm enough.

I know we have it easy compared to folks up north. That doesn't change the fact that I'm fucking cold, damnit, and ready for winter to end.

Of course, when winter ends, summer comes. And I will almost certainly be bitching about that when it happens. But for now, I'm going to pretend I don't bitch about 115 degree (in the shade) heat, and I am going to wish it was here. At least I could feel my damn toes if it was.