Q: You were laid off from the National Weather Service amid all the DOGE cuts, correct?
A: Yes. And they haven’t hired anyone new to do my job.
Q: Which was?
A: The National Weather Service’s Director of “Feels Like.” You know how when there’s a heat wave, you hear that the actual temp is eighty-five degrees but it “feels like” it’s ninety-nine? That was me. Since the 1980s, the “feels like” temp was based on my determinations.
Q: And how were these determinations reached?
A: By considering a variety of factors: heat index, wind chill, dew point, solar intensity, the director’s discretion…
Q: Discretion? So you’re saying “feels like” is partially a subjective measure?
A: No, I am saying that the Weather Service, until this administration came along, entrusted me with the job because I have a decades-long track record of empathic temperature-vibing. A single-digit January day in Chicago may be no colder than a single-digit November day. But in January, the Christmas lights have come down, and the Bears are washed. So you know for damn sure that it feels like it’s twelve below.
Q: Other methods?
A: I’ll put on an early Cure album, from when they were still a three-piece. I’ll stand in an orchard in a roomy overcoat and headphones, close my eyes, and just let the air pass through me. You know the part in “The Hanging Garden” where he sings, “Cover my face as the animallllls… die,” right before the extended outro? That’s when I really feel “feels like.” Robert Smith is a genius.
Q: This all sounds so unscientific.
A: To you, maybe, because you’ve left behind your childhood. I never did. I’m still in touch with my teenage self. Teenagers understand “feels like” better than anyone. When the jasmine’s in bloom and you’ve got on your prettiest floral jumper dress and Jordan Catalano has asked you out, I don’t care what the thermometer reads—it feels like seventy-five degrees with a cool, sweet breeze.
Q: That’s an incredibly dated reference.
A: No, it’s universal.
Q: Is “feels like” the same thing as RealFeel?
A: [sighs] RealFeel is a registered trademark of AccuWeather, and I have nothing further to say about it other than that they ripped off my methods. When I think about ReelFeel, it feels like it’s 106 degrees.
Q: How is the current administration determining “feels like” in your absence?
A: Lies. Abject propaganda. It could be ninety-seven degrees out, but they’ll say it feels like 80 because the president has brought back old-timey 1950s summer temps like the way they used to be before DEI inflamed everything and made people feel hotter.
Q: I was going to ask you about their climate-change denialism.
A: Don’t get me started. That’s where “feels like” is especially important. Last summer, Phoenix had a record seventy days above 110 degrees. It felt like the ninth circle of hell. But my job was to quantify that, so I said it felt like 119.
Q: As in…
A: As in 110, plus nine circles of hell.
Q: What can we do to bridge the differing perceptions of temperature by people of opposing political persuasions?
A: Walks.
Q: Walks?
A:: We have to get everyone walking together, at the same pace, across pedestrian bridges, beneath railroad trestles, through fields of sorghum. To feel together what “feels like” feels like.
