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Get Your Feet Off Me

My extremities are always chilled, and it is not my fault.
[additional-authors]
January 22, 2025
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I was born in New York and lived there until I moved to Los Angeles at 32. During those 32 years, I was never cold. Snowstorms, blizzards — snowballs down my pants — nothing bothered me.  My mother feared the cold; her top two edicts were 1) stay warm and 2) keep your feet dry. My mother believed cold and wet feet cause more deaths than traffic accidents.  

In my first 27 years in California, I was always warm. Then, one day, it all changed. Now, winter or summer, I am almost always freezing. Part of this is due to aging, and part is that my blood is so thin from this warm climate that you could read a magazine right through it. 

Up until the age of 59, I was never cold. I could walk the dog in January, eat a popsicle, and wear just a Speedo in Duluth. Then, somewhere between 59 and 60, my thermostat broke. I touched my face one day and got a mean case of frostbite. Someone who shook my hand asked me when I had died.

On my last trip to New York in December, I was so cold I was lucky my dentures didn’t break from banging them together. Upon entering my hotel room, I jumped into a blazing hot shower so fast that you might have thought I was trying to wash off plutonium.

I try to keep my car temperature the same as an incubator — 98.6 to 99.6 degrees. I once hatched an egg driving home from Trader Joe’s. The upside is my family never sends me to get ice cream. When I ride with my wife, I keep a hot water bottle down my pants because she keeps her car’s temperature control set to a Caribbean 66. You can almost hear Harry Belafonte singing, “Day-O! Day-O!” I just bought my new Honda mainly because it has a remote option allowing me to warm the car before entering. Like a Shabbos cholent, I keep it on all night. If, by chance, I end up in hell, I might ask who I speak with to make it a drop warmer.

My wife is a door monitor, so if I have the heat on and either the front or back door is open, she has conniptions. One month, she agreed to let me keep the doors open and the heat at any temperature I wanted. Our gas bill that month was $28,000.

To bed, I often wear pajamas, socks, mittens, and a ski cap and add two extra blankets in case it snows on my side. This was not the attire I wore on our honeymoon night.  One night, while in bed, I touched her bare leg with my iceberg foot, which caused her to kick the dog across the room into the wall accidentally. I finally understand why Eskimos rub their noses to smooch. If they put their lips together, they might get them yanked off when separating.

I agree that I am not the same guy I was when we first got married. My extremities are always chilled, and it is not my fault. I don’t find the feeling of being cold very pleasant. Plus, I am sorry to put my wife through all this.

On the flip side, I realized that in all His wisdom this is God’s way of men paying back the ladies for what they put us through. Like many men, I was sentenced to one-to-10 years of living with her perimenopause and then another decade or so of menopause.  Her symptoms were hot flashes, night sweats, sleep problems, mood changes, and threatening to slit my throat if I asked where my glasses were while I had them on my head.  My symptoms are simple: I feel cold and need warmth.

So, what is the answer to all of this? Like everything else in life, the answer comes down to acceptance. Acceptance is the key to life. We must accept that my outer skin might always be the same temperature as a mint julep. I need to accept that when she threatens to kill me, she doesn’t mean it.


Mark Schiff is a comedian, actor and writer, and hosts, along with Danny Lobell, the “We Think It’s Funny” podcast. His new book is “Why Not? Lessons on Comedy, Courage and Chutzpah.”

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