Shorts Are Good

I have long held the belief that because New Englanders are so beaten down by winter, we appreciate the warmth more than other places once it finally arrives. I mean, if you're waking up in sunny, 75-degree San Diego 300 days a year, one more day like that isn't going to mean as much to you as when you've been getting a foot of snow dropped on you every Wednesday for a month. Because we're so desperate for it, New Englanders start looking out for the first string of warm days in March, just hunting for any sign that it will finally be Spring. Up until now this Spring has been kind of annoying, in that we would get the occasional day where the temperature was near 70, but those warm days would be surrounded by a week of cold, rainy days during which the thermometer topped out around 45. You could never tell what tomorrow was going to bring. (This is why I'm also convinced the saying, "If you don't like Massachusetts weather wait a minute and it will change" was coined during the month of April.)

However, the last couple of days have been warm, almost stuffy, and have given me hope that I might (I said might) finally be able to put the shovels back into the shed. With this warm weather came the other rite of a New England spring - people anxious to finally reveal parts of their body to sunshine that haven't seen it in months. It's a simple truth: New Englanders love their shorts. In any northern city you can find the occasional fat guy who wears shorts regardless of the weather, but most of us are smart enough to wear pants when it snows. We're not happy about it, though. Instead, we wait for a hint of warmth (our standards for what should be considered 'shorts weather' is much lower than a warm-weather climate) and then they all come out at once; with the stretch of those first warm days in New England comes a parade of some of the most pale calves the world will ever see.

The problem is that New Englanders are also notoriously stubborn. Once we decided that it is safe to start wearing shorts for the season, we're not going back no matter what the weather reports might be. We'd rather freeze than put jeans back on for an abnormally cold June day. Even this morning, as the temperature hovered around 50 (just cold enough that it is not shorts weather, especially not with a steady breeze in the air), you could almost hear the collective decision of New Englanders everywhere who were going to wear shorts to work, come hell or high water. "It'll get warmer as the day goes on," we said, trying to talk ourselves into this being a sound decision, but ultimately knowing that we're just lying to ourselves.

And because New Englanders are so determined to stay in shorts until early September, this is the time of year you see quite possibly the dumbest thing you will ever see: people wearing shorts and winter coats simultaneously. It is almost as if they believe wearing warm clothes from the waist up will somehow transfer body heat down to the legs. That is the length some of us are willing to go to just to stay in shorts and it is absurd. Especially when you consider that you will never see this in reverse - not once will you see someone wearing ski pants and a tank top. Even the guy wearing shorts standing in a snowbank would think that is a stupid look.