40 below is not a kind temperature to live in. The arctic wind pockets usually only hang around for a week, and only come by every other year, but neither the science nor timing offers any comfort when your nose hairs freeze the second you step outside to plug the car block heater into your extension cable.
It’s so cold that your bare skin goes numb the second you take off a glove or your coat sleeve shimmies up, or the bootlace clip on your snow pants loosens it’s grip and slips away to the discomfort of your ankle. It’s that cold that threatens to kill your car battery too. Let me tell you bud, the only thing worse than being outside in 40 below weather is trying to change a car battery in 40 below weather. So like everyone else I do the ritual. I plug the block heater in and pray that the battery survives the night.
The miracle is done before my eyes after I’ve broken through the icy seal that locks my doors shut. Make sure the car key is flipped the right way, grit my teeth, put it in the ignition and turn. When that little box churns it’s power I hear it fight, fight to turn that engine over, fight to repay me for my care. Fight to live another day. And when it works and the car turns on, keeping my life on course, I am sitting alone in my car to take a moment before I get out to unplug the block heater cable and scrape the ice off the windows. In that moment it’s me and the battery. That’s when I say it:
Thank god.