This is a silly thing to discuss today, after all the Afghan craziness yesterday, but it is something I’d like to explore. Do your children wear coats? I mean, when it is cold outside, do they go into their closets and pull out thick garments with sleeves and zippers and hoods, sometimes, and put them on before leaving the house? Are there hats involved? Or gloves, and scarves?
Here, in Texas, kids can survive in short sleeves for nine months of the year. For the other three, they add a sweatshirt. This morning, it was 37 degrees outside, and when I made my second trip to school, at 7:35, it was snowing.
“What is that?” said my 14 year old from the back seat, shivering.
“That is snow,” I answered, in sheepskin, and pajamas.
“Wow! Snow!”
“Wow, a coat, maybe.”
“No coat.”
“The vest, without the sleeves?”
Last year, I bought the vest, thinking it was at least something, if it wasn’t a coat. She loved the vest, I thought.
“It doesn’t do anything,” she said.
“Then, there is something to do.”
It was early for word games. And we had arrived at school. Instead of dropping her off a half mile away and making her feel the cold, step by blustery step, I pulled up a little closer than usual. I am a bad parent. I am not tough enough. Tomorrow, I am going to be so mean. I am going to make her wear the vest.
Pamela Gwyn Kripke 
Funny that where I live in Canada, we’re still waiting for snow, but you’ve already got it in Texas.
Being a native Texan who has also lived in colder climates, I have a theory on why we don’t wear coats. It usually doesn’t stay cold here all day, so if you just shiver a little in the morning, then you have the reward of not having to lug the coat around in the afternoon when it warms up. Of course, this hasn’t been too effective the last couple of days and it seems to have stayed cold into the afternoon.