I Floridian. Ice for iced tea.
It’s a mantra of sorts. I find myself repeating it each night as I sit down to watch the Winter Olympics. Spills don’t get me. Crashes on the luge? Limbs flying by? I can handle it.
But show me a close-up of some ice — of that Sochi winter slush — and I cringe, burrowing deeper into a blanket.
“Oh, this is horrible!” I say. “How can they show this in primetime? Children are watching!”
I Floridian. Ice for iced tea.
I grew up in Tampa. You find record heat inside freezers there. I remember when the NHL first awarded the city its hockey team. My mother was incensed. “How can they play that here!” she demanded. “It’s not right. It goes against the laws of nature. I’m writing my congressman.”
We knew little about ice skating. There was a rink at one of the malls we used to go to. As kids, we would fumble around with the other pathetic Floridians, crashing into each other like bumper cars. The rink attendants skated about with a wheel barrow to cart off the wounded. Each session came with a free ankle brace and a coupon for the ER.
I went on to marry a woman from Long Island. As legend tells it, she was born in the snow, was strapped into snow shoes and then sent off to the store in a blizzard for milk. Northerners are a hardy breed. She tells stories of the local pond freezing over and everyone gliding about, pirouetting and spinning and double axle-ing. Show offs!
We never knew winter sports. They were the same as summer sports. We just looked like sumo wrestlers in all the layers of clothes we had to wear. It got down to 65 degrees some days! We never had the right clothes. Sometimes we just stuffed in kitchen towels for extra insulation.
My dad took my brother and I skiing a couple times. To the so-called slopes of Tennessee. It seemed like it should be easy. You pointed yourself downhill and gravity did the rest. I screamed a lot. I introduced myself to pine trees. I snow-plowed down the mountain in a sorry wedge — a sure-fire way to announce to the world that I was a winter sport virgin.
A Floridian! Sheesh.
So I bundle up as I watch the Olympics. I shiver through the Slopestyle finals while raising the heat and begging for hot chocolate. And over and over again I repeat my simple little mantra: “I Floridian. Ice for iced tea.”
And thank goodness. I could use one right now.