I’ve cracked it. No really, I have, just like one of those pocket hand warmers that are always sold out when you need them (don’t tell me to plan ahead better, it’s physically impossible to consider the idea of hand warmers unless you can’t feel your limbs I swear). But no, I can’t get side-tracked. I’ve cracked it: I know why people feel the need to walk around in 15 degree weather in shorts and a T-shirt, and it isn’t the power of being born in Minnesota like they might claim.
No, those walking around without any sort of protection from the wind are hiding something. And it isn’t that they’re only doing it to get attention from their freezing fellows — though that might have been the initial motivation for choosing to gain tolerance to extreme cold.
You, our cherished Campus Times readers deserve the truth, and that is why I have spent seven months undercover amidst the ranks of the Northeast’s most secret of secret societies: Sníðhræða. From an intense internet investigation after my undercover experience, Sníðhræða means Snow Fear, a name designed to make you think members fear the snow rather than them training to have “no fear” of it.
In my short time as a member of Sníðhræða, we participated in numerous activities designed to change the very fabric of our beings. It started off relatively normal: a couple ice baths and polar plunges. Then it started to get weird: They injected the insides of hand warmers into our blood (I knew it wasn’t my fault I could never find any!), and built fire pits underneath our beds. But then, near the end of my stint, us new initiates were given the honor(?) of watching those who have completed the course have small molecules of lava chemically bonded to each individual cell, designed to heat them from the inside. This is the final change in a long series designed to prime the body to tolerate its union with lava. But, as one might assume, adding lava to one’s cells isn’t the kind of procedure with a 100% success rate. Still, it seemed potentially being slowly turned into a screaming pile of lava was a small price to pay for those hoping to astound with their tolerance of frigid weather.
Soon after witnessing that, I made my escape back to the land of leggings under jeans and hands in pockets, but not before speaking with the American president of Sníðhræða, Thomas Lean. Posing as a faltering initiate (which let’s be real, I was), I requested a meeting with Lean to “raise my confidence.” Lean was initially reassuring, letting me know that “almost all initiates question their commitment to the process at some point.” After just a little prodding, Lean expounded on the history of the society, telling me of the Han Solo–style blocks of ice that now hold their founding members, before anyone had quite gotten the process right. “But don’t worry,” he told me, “we now have a very high 44% success rate with the change.”
To try to boost those levels, Lean told me the society selects initiates from warm homelands: “contrary to popular belief, people who grow up in the heat are better suited for our adaptations, we just tell everyone to say they’re from the Upper Midwest to throw off the heat.”
When asked what would happen if a Sníðhræða member revealed the organization’s secrets to the world, Lean didn’t seem concerned. “I mean, we put that lava there, we control it.”
Yeah okay, I was done. I said goodbye to Lean, and the very next morning I slipped out between shifts. I struggled with whether or not to expose Sníðhræða, I really did, but you deserve to know what walks among us, and potential initiates deserve to know the heat they’ll live with for the rest of their lives. If you see someone walking around on a five degree afternoon in shorts, know that they are liable to turn into lava at a moment’s notice.
This article was discovered on Brosnick’s computer after her untimely death, presumably intended for the humor section.