Rule of One Hotter

Have you ever heard about the "Rule of One Hotter?"

Patricia Marx, in a column for The New Yorker wrote that on one cold, brisk day, she was trying to persuade her nine year-old niece to put on a warmer coat and possibly a hat. Her niece refused, invoking the Rule of One Hotter:

Kids are one hotter than grownups, so if a grownup is hot, a kid is very hot, but if a grownup is very, very cold, a kid is only very cold.

Instinctively, I thought that while this had the ring of truth, there are probably a lot of exceptions to the rule. Kids are sort of self-absorbed that way, they can't possibly think of all the possibilities like neurotic adults can.

Menopausal women and Excessively Fashionable Gay Men, for instance, are prone to be warmer than normal. Menopausal women for obvious reasons, and the E.F.G.M. because they control the weather through sheer mind control, since a bulky overcoat will simply ruin any sexy, skin-tight outfit they just put on. Hookers too, may be exempt, although I would think that crack cocaine only has the heating power to protect to -10 degrees. Any colder would require a heat lamp, which I don't think is likely unless the Prostitutes' Union get together and picket City Hall.

I, on the other hand, am always cold in the winters. Like Patricia, I am probably four colder than most people. In my head, I have invented many a garment to insulate myself from the cold, most of it involving sewing on a Prada label to bulky, winter clothing. I don't know any haute couture designers that design for cold Chicago winters. When a designer has a winter collection, they mean winter in Florida, where their customers have a pied-à-terre. A typical winter item: a see-through cover up for a bikini.

I don't know why it is that winter clothes are always so bulky. I didn't starve myself to a 30 inch waist so that my down jacket would visually add forty pounds to my frame. Thinsulate, that mainstay of winter clothing should be called Fatsulate, for how unflattering it makes anything.

My solution is to wear long underwear so that I can wear more fashionable items without too much bulk. The only problem is, they also friggin bunch up in your pants. Why are they always made with like a 50 inch inseam? Every time I put one on, the elastic band comes up to my armpits. Haven't they heard of low-rise? They are also hellishly hot once you are indoors.

It makes me wish that I was young again, so that I can be one hotter--in more ways than one.

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Related posts from the archives:

What Does It Say About Me? - Matt offers No Milk some fashion advice. Exhale - True Love expands all waistlines.

Tales of Gay Shopping - Two men + shopping together = gay. Death of the Circuit Boy - A quaint, long-winded essay I wrote waaay back in 2001. Boooringg!