The night was cold, but the bed was nicely warm. Six hours without electricity was definitely annoying, and still the blizzard howled outside, the rapid winds sweeping over and around the small house. This was why I had not wanted my husband to accept the job transfer, even though the accompanying raise was definitely what we would need to have a good start on our child's college fund.
To his credit, Daniel was prepared with everything except a generator. From his many backpacking and camping experiences as a teenager, he had enough food and water and supplies so that we could eat and drink and keep warm and see at night for more than a week without requiring outside assistance. Having been born and raised in southern Arizona and having rarely ever seen snow with my own eyes, the northern winter climate had been terrifying in theory, and was proving a little less than terrifying in practice.
Having done his final check of all the windows and doors to ensure they were properly sealed and that the pipes had not frozen, Daniel returned to the bedroom. "Everything's fine, hon," he assured me, setting his flashlight atop one of the dressers. "Are you naked?"
I nodded. "Yeah, but I still don't understand why we need to be naked in a blizzard."
"Body heat," he countered as he began to undress. "Without the clothes, more body heat will be trapped within the blankets to keep us warm."
"That'll help for all of... what, two degrees of heat?"
"In my opinion, two degrees is better than no degrees. At least you'll be sharing body heat with me, not with a skinned mountain lion."
He actually had the gall to laugh at my disgusted expression. If not for the fact that I loved him and almost certainly needed him and his winter survival knowledge to get through my first blizzard and its aftermath, I likely would have forced him to sleep on the couch.
