I would imagine that anybody reading this column on a regular enough basis has a few questions they redundantly and sarcastically want to ask.

“Hey Eric,” some of you start off, a quirky and know-it-all smirk playing at the corners of your mouths. “How do you like winter now?”

Or, “Hey Eric, tell me again about your childhood, playing in the snow.”

That’s right, with winter waking up on the cranky side of nature’s bed this week, I’m guessing now is the perfect time to mock me for my continued love of winter.

And to that I ask, is it no less different when the temperature is a billion degrees above zero, with humidity baking you at a comfortable 350 degrees until you are golden brown … where was I going with this again?

Doesn’t matter.

When people look at me strangely after admitting to enjoying the year’s harshest months, I often respond with this little idea — an idea I came up with some time ago and am immensely proud of, thus I tell it every chance I get.

It’s quite simple really. In the winter, you can continually pile on clothes, gloves, and other garments, allowing you to walk around if not comfortable, tolerably at least.

During the summer, when temperatures resemble walking on the sun, I tell people that you can only take so much off until your illegal.

Come to think of it, I’ve probably already told that story here, but I’m easy when it comes to cheap laughs, so giggle away.

The fact is, I do like winter, but I’m also man enough to admit when things go south, or in this instance, when things come south, such as the polar vortex, part of a system those witty scientists and meteorologists at the National Weather Service have named Jayden, as if that innoncent sounding name makes us any more comfortable with the fact that for a few days, we’ve been walking around as the skin is blasted from our face with 189 mph wind gusts and snow that feels like granite shot from a cannon.

I now hate the name Jayden. Not the people named Jayden. All Jayden’s I’ve met are good people, but the name … Thanks weather service.

It certainly is jarring dealing with windchills this abysmally low, that suck the breath from your lungs before you get a step out of the house. Fifty degrees below zero is stupid by any definition of the word, but not only that, it’s hard to even quantify, and I had to actually look up how to spell “quantify.”

Points for me.

At several stops in my life I have felt temperatures in the minus digits, but I don’t remember when I felt cold like this, aside from possibly the cold shoulder I got from a girl in college … you know what, let’s just put a pin in that for now.

As the temps kept ticking off to the basement of climate, I legitimately wondered if this was the end of all things. Naturally, I didn’t really think that, but it did get me thinking just how badily I want to visit Antarctica, which I truly do.

There’s something about stepping on a chunk of land so few have, but now I have to consider just how worth it it is. I like my nose, I like where my nose currently sits. I don’t need it sandblasted from my face by ice.

I’m pounding this out on Tuesday at the keyboard of my laptop from the cozy living room of my home and aside from wondering if my Ford Escape will ever talk to me again, I do still wonder how much I like winter, and I’ve decided, I still like it quite a bit, I just wish it would settle down a little.

Right now it’s so persisent in its winteryness that I’m starting to wonder if it’s doing it just to get attention, which it is getting plenty of this week.

Look at Facebook and tell me how many of your friends reported on some aspect of the cold. I bet it was a lot and at some point many of them put up pictures of their vehicle temps that recorded the near impossible temperature of minus ridiculous degrees as if we’re all impressed your vehicle started.

We’re all suffering through minus ridiculous degrees Marsha!

I do hope you all made it through the cold and are enjoying the mood swing Mother Nature is experiencing with temps near 40 all of a sudden.

I guess somebody gave her a Snickers.