1st Fictional Story

Here is the first fictional story for new blog:
SURPRISE ON A FRIGID MORNING
Joseph woke up to a bitterly cold morning in mid January. Going to work, he took the usual precautions-he wore a pair of boots, his heaviest winter coat and put on his warmest gloves. Since he had no garage, he made sure his exposed car was on for at least a couple minutes before he drove to the train station.

Joe lived in a suburb south of Chicago. The train was very popular in his community, and hundreds from the same town commuted to downtown Chicago and work. The train was so popular that commuters filled the small building where tickets were sold and many were forced to wait for the train outside.

Unfortunately, that is what occurred on this frigid January morning. As he put his gloves to his face to keep warm, he couldn't help but recall growing up in a farm community as a boy. When the weather was cold, his cows would all huddle together tightly so that they touched other cows. Since each cow gave off a good deal of body heat, the concentration of the combined heat warmed all of them up, even on bitterly cold days. Now, Joe observed how each person waiting outside for the train stood by themselves, cold and miserable. For all our intelligence and riches, everyone outside this station was dumber than the cows! Being uptight and conventional, they were unable to take advantage of a primitive method of keeping warm even though they could easily do so!

Joe heard laughing as a man in his mid to late 30s was talking to two very attractive women in their 20s. Since Joe was curious and also desired to be next to someone beautiful, he walked over to this man and women. The man was goofy as he was laughing with the women. He almost resembled a troll, and Joe couldn't understand how these women would give him the time of day, to say nothing of sharing a laugh with him.

To his shock, the man had his hands clenched, but no gloves or mittens. Joe resolved to speak up and said in a friendly way, "It's no fun having no gloves with the temperature being 5 degrees."
"Oh, I'm doing fine," the man said and laughed goofily.
"How can that be?" Joe asked.
"He's got a secret gadget for each hand. Show him!" one of the ladies said.

The man opened his hand; he was carrying a simple 9 volt battery and a penny. "By putting the penny over the terminals, the battery gets warm and the heat protects my hands. With mittens or gloves, you're just retaining heat. This battery generates heat!" he exclaimed proudly before chuckling again.
"He's got it all figured out!" observed one of the women as they all laughed.
Tacitly, Joe could not agree more with her complement although he was far more impressed that this guy could get two beautiful women to laugh since they were normally very quiet and reserved. Maybe it’s true what they say about women: they’re drawn more to personality than looks.

Joe decided to introduce himself to the three of them. He couldn't do wrong being around lovely women and learning some charm from this guy. As he sat with the three on the train ride that morning and also on the following mornings, he was extremely grateful that he departed from his normally taciturn nature and spoke up. The quartet became friends.
(C) 2002
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