You know what, Mom? Citation needed.

Specific numbers aside, almost everybody agrees it’s a good idea to cover your head when you go out in the cold. So why don’t you do it? Have you got some kind of pneumonia wish? Or do you just not like being told what’s good for you? (MY UNCLE RALPH NEVER TOUCHED A TOQUE IN HIS LIFE, AND HE LIVED TO BE NINETY-SIX!)

Oh, I get it—it’s vanity, right?

Sure, your ears are frosty as Burl Ives’s mustache, but you’re worried a winter cap would muss your coif, right? Yeah, I’ve seen your kind before.

Sometimes, when I’m out on the town on one of these long winter nights, I see packs of shrieking sorority-girl types darting out of bars and into taxicabs, or vice-versa. No coats, no scarves, no gloves, no outerwear whatsoever. I’ve never understood this behavior. Ostensibly, they’re concerned that once they’re inside whatever hot nightspot they’re headed for, dancing to “Single Ladies” (or whatever those people do), any bulky winter outerwear will just get in the way of looking cute. And looking cute is the primary objective of the entire operation.

But here’s the thing: Gallivanting in freezing weather without the proper attire does not actually help you look cute. It helps you look stupid.

OK, back to you and your precious hairdo.

First, let me just say that if I were you, I’d pull a proper stocking cap on, no matter what. Even if I were the notoriously bare-headed JFK on inauguration day, I’d be all: “Ask not why it’s so cold up in here. Ask why you were too dumb to put a hat on.” But OK, whatever, for bizarre reasons of your own, you seem to think stocking caps look dorky.

While the implicit critique of my own winter wardrobe stings a bit, I hope we can at least agree that you’d look even dorkier if your ears froze and shattered right off your head.

So please, please consider putting on one of these Eargrips ear warmers, won’t you? It won’t muss your hair. That’s why the TV people wear them when they anchor the Macy’s parade coverage. And you can’t tell me Matt Lauer looks “dorky,” can you?

Alright, scratch that last point.

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