Midwesterners are a different breed. We have men who will wear shorts in 15-degree weather. We have moms who will call anything a «salad» even if it looks literally nothing like any salad you’ve ever seen before. We have dads who will get so angry that the only words that can come out of their mouths are «Listen here, pal.» We’re eccentric in our own way, and we love that about ourselves. That’s why whenever a Midwesterner leaves the region and runs into another Midwesterner, you immediately become friends. You know you have a shared lingo of «ope,» «scuse me,» and that you both know what -20 degrees windchill feels like. It will change a person. 

That kind of lifestyle creates the friendliest people with the highest tolerances for cold the world has known (okay maybe not the world, but definitely this country). We’re beasts in our own way, even if we look harmless and smiling.