Living in Montreal I have identified a number of sensations which can only be exprienced when it gets really, really cold. They are:

Lung Rebelion: Lung rebelion occurs when you make the grave mistake of taking a really deep breath the second you step outside. Symptoms of lung rebelion include a burning pain in the chest and convulsive coughing as the lungs try to expel the hyper-cold air you so calously sucked in (you idiot).

Snot Freeze: Even if you don’t have a cold there is enough mucus in a healthy nose to inspire snot freeze. Snot freeze can be identified by a sudden stiffening of the nostrils as all moisture rapidly freezes along the nose hairs. I imagine this is particularly painful for old Greek men.

Cheek Burn: When the temperature really drops there are two courses of action for pedestrians: 1. walk or 2. run. If you walk you have to spend longer outside and it is more difficult to keep your core warm. If you run, you can get the pain over and done with (the bandaid removal theory) and you maintain a warm core (as your heart pounds in a desperate attempt to keep your frozen legs moving). An unfortunate side effect of running, however, is cheek burn whereby super-cool air flowing over exposed cheeks simultaneously freezes the skin and sucks all moisture out.

Eyelash Stickiness: When it’s cold and windy the eyes protect themselves by releasing tears (not the crying kind). These tears, however can be blown from the eyes onto the surrounding eyelashes where they wait for a blink. The moment the upper and lower eyelashes touch the tears begin to freeze requiring a rapid and gargantuan response to prevent permenant freeze-sealing. If blinking properly eyelash stickiness results, if blinking inproperly the eyes will freeze shut landing you in a whole new can of worms.