This Is How Office Assistants In Tiny Shorts Fight Freezing

I came today to Gawker’s office—under 35C heat and 95 per cent humidity — to find Julia, our brilliant office assistant, typing inside a Slanket, hiding her shorter-than-short shorts. My first reaction: “What the hell are you doing?” Her explanation was good.

“Listen,” she said, “I have to come to the office in the subway, with this horrible heat and humidity killing me. That’s why I wear shorts. But then, when I come to the office we get this summertime sub-zero air conditioning, blowing at full, and I freeze! That’s why I got the Slanket.”

She is so right. She may not look as pretty with the Slanket, but it’s actually freezing here. This is the irony of spending summer in NY or any other city in the world: You go through your day suffering artificial winter in t-shirt and shorts, only to be toasted a minute later as you go down to grab a sandwich.

So as I write these lines and feel the hypothermia coming in, the frostbite on my feet — only protected with Havaianas — I wish I had a Slanket too. Definitely the ultimate accessory for summer in the city.