'Cold snobs' like to play it cool

ST. LOUIS -- Oscar Rodriguez flaunts his baggy shorts square in the face of so-called cold.

"Cold?" he said on a recent afternoon. "This isn't cold. Not really."

Mind you, Oscar and his shorts made that declaration earlier this month after walking down Edwardsville's Main Street -- where the wind chill was 4.

Oscar, 16, is part of a weather phenomenon that seems to happen more often the colder it gets. It's "cold snobbery."

Cold snobs are rarely impressed by what others consider the occasional frigidity of the Midwest. Below-zero wind chill? Break out the lawn darts, cold snobs say. Your anti-freeze, in fact, isn't? Hey, let's barbecue some brats.

Everybody knows people like this. They're usually easy to spot. Their mantra -- "You call this cold?" -- is an annoyingly familiar jingle. Their clothes -- say, shorts -- tend to give them away, too. And with any cool weather, they are ready to boast.

"My Mom keeps telling me to wear pants instead, but my legs don't get cold," Oscar said. "It's not that bad."

Oscar spent six years in Salt Lake City, which, he said, matured his cold snobbery. In fact, cold snobs are very likely to be St. Louis transplants.

Such as some University of Wisconsin alumni. Mary Burnett, a tax consultant in St. Louis who lives in St. Charles, attended the school. She gathered with some fellow Badgers alums to watch a basketball and the subject of whether St. Louis gets cold came up.

"I got answers like 'Ask me again when it's winter,' and 'It's not cold enough here to worry about,"' Burnett said.

She and her friends even partake in cyber-cold snobbery. They circulate e-mails that say things such as: "If you have worn shorts and a parka at the same time, and if you find minus 20 degrees a little chilly, you might live in Wisconsin."

Sure, Midwest cold could be worse. It certainly isn't akin to Barrow, Alaska, the coldest city in the country. The average temperature there is 10. Two years ago the wind chill hit 81 degrees below 0. Earlobes freeze. Lungs get frostbite.

Still, a wind chill in the single digits is nothing to sneeze at -- or maybe it is -- for people who rarely experience worse. But many people who grow up in colder regions insist they're made for the winter; they're more acclimated to the cold.

Ellen Glickman, a professor of exercise physiology at Kent State University who studies cold exposure, said that claim wasn't proven. A combination of genes and the added insulation of a few extra pounds might help. But just because one grew up in the Dakotas doesn't mean that person is more inclined to peripherally vasoconstrict -- or store heat -- better than a St. Louisan, she said.

Of course, there is a price to cold snobbery, Burnett, the Wisconsin alum, said. Bravado and exhibitionism can come back to haunt you. Such as when it snows, and your boss knows good and well you can make it in to work.

"It is expected of you," Burnett said.