It's so cold, on my way to work I saw a dog frozen to a fire hydrant!

Of course by mid January, the sentiment quickly changes, and it's not fluffy or lovely anymore; it’s sickening and those loving, caressing tones have been replaced with a grumpy, gruff, “Hey you lazy loaf! If I see another snowflake I’m going to go postal and strangle that damned weatherman. There’s another foot of that stinking awful snow! Get off that couch, grab your shovel and get out there!"  

Indeed, once the holiday season is over, all that's left is grumpy old lady winter. 

Anyway, as far as I'm concerned, anyone who brags about being the coldest has obviously forgotten to take his medication. Seriously, it's people like this who start the world believing that cold was invented in Canada – which got me to do some serious thinking about ‘cold.’ So, I did a little research.

Naturally, to trace the invention of cold back to its roots and, to ensure the utmost highest standards of journalistic accuracy, I went to a website called fartz.com. According to fartz, the Vikings invented cold.  

True. History suggests that it was the Viking "Eric" who discovered cold and quickly renamed himself, "Eric the Red" (because "Eric the too damned cold" was too long and didn't fit on his business card).  

Of course, Eric’s discovery of cold wasn't all that bad as it led to the invention of skiing, the invention of the broken leg and the invention of the emergency ski patrol. 

Perhaps, the most famous of cold inventions is the snowball.

As usual, our American friends claim Abner Doubleday invented it in 1906 at Kittyhawk North Carolina but the real history books credit the Swedish brothers Orville and Wendel Farfevneugen. Apparently, after a major Scandinavian snowfall, the constantly quarrelling brothers could not find any rocks to throw at each other and were forced to make snow replicas.  

Oh well, the sad truth is, there's not a lot you can say to defend this frozen Canadian slush heap in winter. And believe me, my fine northern friends, factoring in the wind chill isn't going to impress anyone.

I can only hope that when Cuban dictator Fidel Castro passes on to that great cabana in the sky, the Canadian government will offer to make Cuba the eleventh province of Canada.  

Granted, that would make Canada an official tri-lingual country, but bi-lingual/tri-lingual, hell, the more the merrier. Besides, the term ‘wintering in Canada’ would take on a whole new meaning.