The other day, in the early ante meridiem, after boiling up a cup of dark fuel and settling into the sagging couch nearest the radiator, I cracked the lid on the old computer, ready to rattle off another rousing tale of my Italian exploits and explorations. Sometimes, the words don’t come quickly at 5AM, but that day the muse seemed to be on my side. To my surprise, it started off something like…“The day breaks early on our hero, crisp and cool. Too cool actually: 50 degrees…”

Apparently I was to be the hero in my short recount of a long weekend I had recently spent in Verona. Hmmm, I remember thinking, the muse is taking a different tact on this than I imagined. Still…let’s see what happens. I paused briefly to burn the shit out of my mouth on coffee before I resumed. Where was I, ah yes, too cool: 50 degrees… “If you know me then you know that around 60 degrees I start complaining about cold, at 50 I start shivering, and at 40 my teeth start rattling. Hypothermia begins to creep in at around 35, and I lose vision under 32. So the early morning 50, for our hero, was a shivery start.”

Hmmmm, again. I was losing focus. The topic was turning towards weather and my delicate constitution. I tried to fight it, to turn the words back towards Verona, but alas, they wouldn’t go. The result you’ll find below.  Fair Verona, it seems, must wait…

…These numbers are all in Fahrenheit mind you...

…None of this Celsius garbage. Turns out I have strong feelings against Celsius. The feelings are irrational of course. Both Fahrenheit and Celsius use freezing and boiling points of water as major mercury marks, 32 and 212 for Fahrenheit, 0 and 100 for Celsius, and now that I write that out, okay sure, Celsius looks neater—much like Metric when compared to American measurements. But I just can’t get on board.

Exploring these feelings, I’ve decided it’s because I like to see the change in the actual number of degrees, like, significantly.

If a cold front sweeps through an area, I want the temperature to drop 20 degrees!

Not 6.

I want to be able to talk about “triple-digit heat”.

Not temperatures topping 38.

I cannot get excited about 38 degrees. 38 does not seem like beach weather.

100 degrees? Break out the sun-tan lotion.

I am sure my feelings are shared and these feelings are valid. Why? Because they are the same feelings that Dan Fahrenheit had when he created the Fahrenheit scale way back in 1724. (That’s right, his name was Dan)You see, he patterned his new fangled mercury thermometer off a contemporary’s, a dude by the name of Ole Romer.(Yes, his first name was Ole)Apparently, Ole Romer used an alcohol-based scale where 0 was roughly freezing and 60 was roughly boiling. Danny Fahrenheit didn’t like that, so he just multiplied Romer’s numbers by roughly 4 to come up with his own, the numbers we Americans know and love today. This thinking seems arbitrary. I think Danny wanted bigger numbers for the sake of bigger numbers.

And so do I.

Last week? The high temp in Genoa was14 degrees Celsius. The low was 12. Today in Brussels? The high is 4. The low, -1.

Yawn.

That temperature is doing nothing! Let’s kick it up a notch. Mix it up!

I am all for the Metric system. I love it. I’ve mentioned this before. It’s so easy. However, I have to draw a line with this temperature scale. It’s just so narrow.

So. I am going to stay Fahrenheit until the end. And I realize in quoting temperature this way that most of the world’s population will have no idea what I am talking about. That is, except for citizens of the United States, Canada, the Cayman Islands, Palau, Belize, Guam, Puerto Rico and some other former US protectorates. I could go on and on…for another one or two countries…but I’ll stop there.

I’ll just have to make due with the almost 400 million inhabitants of those Fahrenheit-loving countries for my bread and butter. For my readership. If I can’t make due with that, well, that seems greedy.

For those rare Celsius-lover reading this and other posts, for those found clueless or spellbound with talk of Danny Fahrenheit and his scale, for those unable to multiple by 4/9 or 5/9 or some such, refer to my handy scale I mentioned above and rewrote below. I think you’ll find it most useful.

Remember:

60 degrees –  complaints of cold

50 degrees – shivering starts

40 degrees – teeth start rattling

35 degrees – Hypothermia begins to creep in

32 degrees and under – vision loss

And in the other direction, 100 degrees – suntan lotion.

E basta.

You’re welcome.