Wednesday, April 30, 2014

200 Below Zero AHW

A tale of a really old grandfather telling a tale of exploring Antarctica to a 5 year old girl.

"Oooh, there I was standing among bears, so cold that I couldn't even imagine…", said the old man in a hoarse, aged voice. "But, Grampy George polar bears don't live in Antarcti-what-i-ca, they live up North, silly!", A short stubby little girl corrected her grandpa, with such a squeaky voice that you'd think that she ate sugar for breakfast every day. "I'm sorry Snowflake, I meant penguins.", he croaked back with an even more cracked voice. "Hey, my name isn't snowflake! It's Polly. Now tell me a boat them snow drifts.", You might not think 5 year olds have accents, but this one has the heaviest Southern accent you'll ever know. Meanwhile her grandfather had a… well, sort of, a Canadian mixed with Northern accent. "Polly, I know how much you want to see snow. Anyway, snow is white- very white, kindly fluffy and gentle - like a lamb's touch, cool eh." She stared at him blankly: it wasn't enough for her, "How cold was it Gramps?" He didn't think she would need to know - he underestimated her now he knows that Polly needs details, detail, examples in order to understand. He began, "Um snow is white like a cloud. Fluffy like cotton candy, but not as sticky. Gentle like slowly falling leafs. Graceful like a thousand ballet dancers. Fun like, uh, Fun like you Polly." He thought that he pretty much covered it all - he barely had any voice left! "Okee-dokes, but, I wanna know how cold it was, Grampy G," now they both understood each other. Polly was used to coolish Winters and steaming Summers, so she couldn't know what cold felt like. Her grandfather started again.
 "As cold as your fridge."
 "How cold's that."
 "In Antarctica it was freezing nothing in sight besides ice for miles at a time."
 " Ya-huh. A better word'd be frigid and I now mean exactly how cold it was."
Unlike the other questions her grandfather didn't stutter at this one, even though it meant some exaggeration Polly would understand. "200 degrees below zero." Polly's jaw dropped, "Wow, gramps I wanna go, too."


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