Are you tired of all the “cold” posts yet? Don’t worry. I’m getting all these out of my system before we move to Houston and am, hopefully, never cold again. This one is pretty funny, though.
My in-laws lived for some time in Russia, where the weather is no laughing matter. It took my in-laws one full winter of nearly freezing to death to overcome their aversion to real fur. In some parts of the world, being a PETA member and/or protesting fur could get you killed. At any rate, my father-in-law decided not to take any chances when we drove them to Durango to ride the Polar Express, and wore his Shapka, as shown above.
As a side note, we used this Russian connection to purchase a real mink Shapka for my father. This is the very best present I ever got him thus far in my whole life, because he wore it all over West Texas for the rest of the winter and didn’t lose the Sean Connery faux-Russian accent until sometime the following summer.
When my mother-in-law went shopping for hers (which is called something else because Shapkas are only for men, but I can’t remember what the girl version is called), she picked up one that was very soft. She gestured to it and asked “what is this?” but the Russian saleslady just shook her head. My mother-in-law tried again, but the lady would not tell her what it was made of. My mother-in-law finally said in Russian, “I want to know what this is made of,” and the lady finally said, “cat.” My dear mother-in-law dropped that hat like a hot potato. When relating this story, she reminded me for the umpteenth time, “There is a reason Moscow is considered a hardship location.”
When you are willing to put a skinned cat on your head… now that is cold.
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