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OK, so maybe we're going a little overboard with that headline, but it can't be helped. Weather hysteria has gripped the land.
If you've been outside today, you already know: It's cold, and it's getting colder, and it's going to stay cold -- below-zero cold -- until at least Thursday or Friday. Maybe longer! So of course this has prompted warnings and watches and emergencies and so, so many Facebook posts about bringing your pets inside and guiding the homeless to the nearest shelter and so on. Do we need to pile on? It's very, very cold. Do what you need to stay warm.
But if you can stand it, here's one voice telling you to step outside in the teeth of it, if only for a few minutes. Bundle up and all that, but nestle in your warm parka one night this week and just gaze upon the frozen landscape for a while. Watch the steam coming out of chimneys, the way the light glistens on the snow.
One night, years ago, in the midst of a -22 Midwestern cold snap, your correspondent found herself driving into the city where she lived at the time, a Sunday night around 11 p.m. Almost everything was closed. A couple of grocery and drugstores were still open, but so much frost covered their windows they were just smudgy lights in the dark. As I passed the city limits, I saw one more business bravely showing an "open" sign. And that was where I saw the only human being out in the elements that night. A young man, collar upturned, hands shoved in his pockets, trudging up the walk to answer the oldest human urge in our DNA, beyond staying warm and fed. He was going to that open business -- a massage parlor.
I think of him every time it gets cold like this. I hope he got what he wanted that night.
Here's a list of emergency shelters and warming centers, from the Free Press.
The governor has declared a state of emergency ahead of the cold.
The Michigan Humane Society emergency line is (313) 872-3401.
