Baby, it's cold (but not snowing) outside.

Okay.

Sometimes, a gal's just got to vent.

Here in the midwest, we experience a little something called "sub-zero temperatures." This shouldn't be news to... well, any of us. But, apparently, it is.

Walking into work today, I wore gloves and a winter coat. My collar was turned up, and my coat was pulled tightly around me. My gloves were warm. I was adequately covered, considering I parked approximately four inches from the door. But, when I entered my office, people acted like I was some sort of freaking war hero. "Wow!" they exclaimed. "No hat? No scarf? You could have frozen!" Bewildered, I continued on to my desk.

Frankly, it was pre-9 a.m., and I was only a 1/2 cup of coffee into my day. The streets could have been paved in gumdrops and poo, and I wouldn't have noticed. So, I'd hardly noticed that the temperature had, apparently, dropped approximately 367 degrees in the span of 12 hours.

What I did notice, though, was that people were driving like assholes. I mean, there was no snow. The sun wasn't glaring to any ridiculous extent, and there were no accidents hindering my travels. No; people were just being morons. Apparently, when it's cold, driving half the speed limit is not only recommended, but required. Perhaps by penalty of death.

The commute was ludicrous. An ancient man drifted across the lane lines in front of me; an exhausted mother stopped in front of me at random to release 3,579 children from her Stratus Coupe clown car; a school bus driver flipped me off as he made a left turn from the right lane.

As I came within a block of my office, I noticed a car to my right. The driver looked mildly frustrated, though fairly adjusted. She seemed like someone who certainly needed to get to work, but not like someone who found her exterior circumstances to be particularly unusual or prohibitive. She wasn't cutting people off, flipping me the bird, or weaving awkwardly through traffic like a drunken sorority girl at a frat party (who wouldn't have been drunk if someone hadn't told her that Vodka and Lime-aide was delicious and wouldn't really affect her that much, so she brought it to the party in a water bottle, and she had to hide it in her purse, because how was I supposed to know that outside alcohol wasn't allowed in the frat house? ...I'm sorry, what?).

This woman drove calmly. Almost serenely. As I slowed down to make the final, left turn into my office complex, the woman remained in the lane to my right. I stopped to wait for the left-turn arrow, and the woman finally passed me.

She had Texas plates.

Texas!

Seriously, I have family in Texas, and most of them have never even seen snow. I'm not sure they know what it is. They may, in fact, think that "snow" is some sort of government conspiracy. They eat killer Mexican food, do weekends in Galveston, and say "howdy." I freaking love Texans. But they don't know snow.

But this lady? She had her shit together. Somehow, she drove up from T-land and handled the snow like a champ.

So, midwesterners? ...What's your excuse?