THE ICEMAN COMETH

This week has been snowy in my fair city. Like most of the northern hemisphere really, so there’s nothing odd about it. What’s odd is how I’ve responded to it.

Mostly when Denver gets 18inches of snow the sun comes out and the meltdown starts, a day of bad slush on the roads and then dry pavement. However, this week the temperatures haven’t moved up out of the twenties. Frozen slush and ice getting layered upon my car. The OCD to keep my luxury automobile clean quickly moved into the high eighties. A heat wave of compulsive thoughts.

It was bi and tri day at the gym yesterday, after the push-ups I headed out to clean the evil salt and magnesium chloride that was quickly eating away at my wheel wells. The wheels wells on my car were so packed in with ice there was no space between tire and ice. So, it really wasn’t vanity, it was for safety. Yeah, safety.

I had a rush of warmth move over me as I high-pressure hosed off my windscreen. The compulsive thoughts of a perfectly clean car were subsiding. As I stood there in utter bliss spraying the Steve-mobile in my gym shorts and T-shirt I started to wonder what the temperature was. This was quickly answered by “Helen” a sixtyish local citizen who had pulled off the street filled with concern when she saw a crazy man. A crazy man out in the weather in just running shorts and a tight T-shirt.

“Honey, you know it’s twenty-four degrees out? Are you okay?” I wanted to say that I was fine, just an obsessive gay boy whose life revolves around going to the gym and not letting a speck of dirt hit his windshield. A gay boy that doesn’t have the sense about him to bring other clothes to wear after he spends hours at the gym. Instead I just nodded at Helen and thanked her for her concern. Then off she went into the freezing mid-afternoon in her filthy snow covered Oldsmobile as I thought, man she was crazy.