That’s my most recent neologism, and while digits normally might refer to fingers, here I’m thinking toes. Which makes me want to work backwards to think of prestidigitation as quick toes… But cold feet. I have some seriously cold feet—not the nervous kind, but the sub-zero kind. I’m not kidding about this either. Sometimes when we’re watching t.v., John will sit on my feet for me to try to warm them up, but that never lasts long. After a few minutes John will admit that he’s getting frostbite through the clothing and blankets, and my feet will be not much warmer for it.

This is not for lack of heat on his part. We can run the fan in the dead of winter with only summer pajamas and blankets on the bed, and I will still have to kick the covers off in the middle of the night to cool down from sleeping so close to a furnace. He generates heat at nuclear levels of radiation, but it’s still not enough to warm up my feet.

Yesterday was particularly bad. The property company is apparently renovating the apartment directly below ours, which means that our apartment reeks of rising paint fumes. We had a fan in one window drawing the air out and another pushing it in, and the smell was still making us both a little dizzy. And while our property company does waste ridiculous amounts of energy by keeping the apartment at eighty degrees (with no way to turn the heat down or off), the heat was not quite sufficient to balance out the unfortunate need for the fans.

On top of that, I don’t really wear socks at home because (and hear me out on this) it doesn’t do any good. My feet don’t get much warmer, but they do sweat. Given the choice between slightly less cold and sweaty or slightly more cold and dry, I’ll take slightly more cold and dry. What this translated to yesterday evening as I was climbing into bed beside my drowsy husband was this:

John: “Ow!!”

Me: “I’m sorry! Did I kick you, or scratch you?”

John: “No. I guess ‘Ow’ wasn’t the right reaction. It’s just that your feet are so cold it registered as pain for a second.”

Me: “Ah. Sorry about that.”

John: “It’s okay. I’ve accepted that your cold feet are part of being married to you.”

Me: “Sadly true. At least I don’t have to touch you with them to benefit from your warmth. You’re like an electric heater—I can just hold them a few inches away, and that will take the worst of the chill off.”

I think one of the reasons our marriage works so well is that our mutant ice and fire powers balance each other out.