Cold weather is not a given in Texas

Last Tuesday, the last day of January, I had to turn the air conditioner to “cool” because I was sweating through my fleece-lined leggings. These are the same fleece-lined leggings that I had worn under my slacks during the week before because the wind chill factor was under twenty degrees. But, the people in my office did not appreciate my dilemma. 

You see, I work in a small office surrounded by one computer, two printers, a fax machine, and two monitors. All of these are constantly emitting heat. Therefore, when these machines are all running, the temperature in my office is about fifteen degrees warmer than it is in the living room next door where people wait to get their taxes prepared. The people in there were not wearing their fleece-lined leggings because it was eighty degrees when they left home, and they were smart enough to wear shorts. 

I, on the other hand, got dressed that morning when the temperature was thirty-five. It was cold outside when I left to run a few errands. I wore my coat over my fleece-lined leggings and was glad. I would have probably worn my hat and gloves had I remembered. By the time, I got back to the house to open the office, it had warmed up a little, but I didn’t have time to change clothes … and I looked awfully cute in my tunic and … fleece-lined leggings. 

I have a wonderful old “leather” chair in my office. The closest that chair has ever been to a cow is the oil refinery where the liquid-pleather-plastic passed by a farm on the way to the factory. Pleather chairs are warm. They are great on a cold day when the wind-chill outside hovers around the freezing mark. However, they are really too warm when the fleece-lined leggings begin sweat. 

I turned on the air condition when I took my break for lunch between two- and three-o’clock.  No one was in the living room to complain, so I changed it from heat to cool and went off to find food and a little rest. After three, the room quickly filled up, and I noticed when I went through for a bathroom break that several of the people were huddled on the couch. One woman was using one of Zuckey’s blankets over her shoulders, and one man had gone out to the car for his coat.

I did not change the thermostat. I figured they would be there, at the most, an hour. I had to work in that oven, wearing those fleece-lined leggings, sitting in that pleather chair for another three hours. Zuckey had several blankets … so there.

The last customer left about six thirty. As I cleaned off my desk and started into the kitchen to fix my dinner, I noticed that one of the houseplants was limp. The grease in the pan on the stove was solid. The ice from my lunch-time drink was still hard, and Zuckey was curled into the corner of her bed with her last remaining blanket. It was about 45 degrees in the living room. 

The next day was supposed to be cooler, so I decided not to wear the fleece-lined leggings. I decided that wearing some Levi’s and a sweater would be a good plan. I decided to layer the sweater over a cotton shirt. It is Texas, after all, and the fact that it is January or February or July makes no difference. One must arm himself with a good air conditioning unit and layers of clothing … and wear fleece-lined legging judiciously.