South Floridians in the cold

We, the people of South Florida, are a truly pathetic bunch in the cold, I have to say. Here's a little background:

About, ooh, 10-12 times a year, a "cold" front comes through. However, by the time it reaches us, it has usually lost most of its bite and is actually a "cool" front. The temperatures might dip to the middle fifties at night, rising to the high sixties or low seventies during the day. Your average tourist or snowbird might cope with this by wearing a long-sleeved t-shirt with his shorts and flip-flops. Or might wear some long pants with his short-sleeved polo shirt. But your average local? Fully decked out in jeans, Ugg boots and a sweater. And perhaps a scarf. Shivering and generally muttering about it being freezing, but often somewhat glad at the same time at getting to air out the sweater collection.

So, once or twice a year, it actually does get cold. Like today. I had to put my heating on for the first time this year. The heating - can you imagine?! The temperatures dipped below 40 degrees. Shock! Horror! And sadly, this is where we are most pathetic. See, only people who travel north regularly have any coats or sweaters that are in any way up to date. Everyone else is using the same old sweater that they've been dragging out of the closet once a year since 1984. Nobody has any coats that are usable, so we layer. Yes, we layer our 80's patterened sweaters with every single long sleeved item we have, and go about looking like great flappy Michelin men who have yet to get with the current decade. But the sad thing is that none of our stuff is made to keep us warm, so even with all the layers, everybody is still hunched over and shivering all day.

And the tourists? Yeah, they're all looking chic in their up-to-the-minute lightweight jackets and whatnot, and looking supremely comfortable and wondering what the fuss is about when it's barely even chilly.