Cold as Hell

It's cold.

Frigid, freezing air, the breath escaping my lips instantly freezes as it hits the atmosphere.  I love the phrase "cold as hell", it raises interesting points of view. (especially for the 2 people living inside my head).  First, isn't the general conceived notion of hell a wasteland of fire and sulfur?  Unbearably hot with magma and flames and stiffled breath, and the constant dirty sweat.  Well then why is there the phrase "cold as hell"? Isn't that the opposite of what hell is? Who started this phrase and how did it catch on? I try to picture the scenario that this first took place and it goes 2 different ways in my mind, I will attempt to describe the first situation.  Two men are outside, it is winter, there is an intense freeze over the surrounding area, they are all bundled up the best that they can, and one is getting hypothermia, so he is sputtering out nonsense.  His teeth are chattering as he tries to maintain a conversation with the other.  He attempts to stammer out a phrase over the frozen gail of a wind that is wreacking havoc across the frozen tundra.  As the words leave his mouth he doesn't know what he's saying.  The second man hears these words and is quite confused, and becomes suddenly worried about his friend.  He grabs the man in his arms and says he needs to rush him someplace warmer immedietly.  The first man has a glazed over look on his face but seems to almost understand as the second man leads him towards shelter.  They get a fire going and the first man starts to have some life about him again, his thoughts returning and his head now clear.  He looks at the second man and asks what made him so distrought all of a sudden.  The second man turns to him and says,
"you were muttering nonsense, but it was one phrase in particular that triggered my worry".

"What could I possibly have said to have you so frantic?" the first man asked.

"You had said to me, It feels as cold as hell".

It was at that moment I knew that something had to be seriously wrong, I feared for your life.

"Cold as hell?" the first man responds inquisitivley.

"That makes no sense at all, I must have been delirious"

  "That is what I assumed, so I had to get you warm again" replied the second man.

They stayed in the shelter through the night and remained warm, in the morning the sun had broke through the frost that had covered the men as they slept and breathed new life into them.  They looked at the sun and felt it's warming glow.  They both went their seperate ways after that but neither forgot that phrase that signified just how cold it was outside that night.  Everytime after that they used the phrase "cold as hell" whenever the tempatures started to dip, and the deep freeze started setting in. They say it and crack a little smirk as they think about that night.  Others heard this and thought it a strange way to describe the cold, but it stuck, possibly because it was so unique.  So the next time it's below zero outside, and you hear the phrase "cold as hell" I hope this is what you think of...

But...That is just one persons imagination however...

The other person that lives in my head has a different thought process.  Not on the origin of the phrase, it doesnt care about the origin.  It just remarks on the fact that hell is a fictional place, made up in peoples minds, hell can be whatever you want it to be.  Nobody knows if it's made of fire, and smoke, and heat.  Nobody has been there, nobody has seen it.  Even if it is real, we would have no way of knowing.  The only people that ever travel there will already be dead and have no way of letting the living know. It might be hot, it might be cold, it might be a blank whiteness.  It might have a river styxx cutting through it and lost souls everywhere. Nobody knows.

Maybe it is a frozen wasteland, made up of glaciers and frozen rivers and impossibly high mountains with hurricane force winds blowing frozen rain across exposed flesh.  That sounds pretty terrible to me, so why can't hell be cold? What if that is hell to people? To people who were born and raised in Arizona, or Texas their whole lives and then came to Minnesota in January they would definitly be in for a shock.  They would be plunged into a hell of sorts.  It is not a place for everybody, that is for damn sure.  Even people who have lived in Minnesota their whole lives can't stand this weather, we bitch and moan about it every winter, and yet we never move, never decide to just up and go.  Some migrate south to warmer climates in the winter, but not everybody is as fortunate as that.  We wear our metaphorical frost bite as badges of honor, every winter we survive is another battle won. We are stronger than most of the rest of the states because of our seasons.  First of all we actually have seasons, all 4 of them.  And they are quite intense, specifically winter and summer.  Our winter's our extreme, we have ice, snow, sleet, salt, and cold... oh, so much cold.  It's a topic of the day, something for people to bond over, if we have nothing else in common we have the cold.  You can walk into any store in Minnesota when it is 15 below and instantly have something in common, and you can spark a convo, or share a friendly smile, even a head nod as you are zipping up your second jacket or putting on your giant mittens over the top of your gloves.  We have a special bond here in Minnesota, and it might be hell to us sometimes, but it's what makes us Minnesotans  it's what makes us tough. So I can say with all the certainty in the world that I do in fact, live in Hell.