heat advisory
I came in from weeding nettles that were stealing light and moisture from my vegetables in their cold little garden plot and I noticed I had broken a sweat. It’s a couple days from August so I assumed summer might have arrived when I had my flannel-clad back turned. Hot! Man, it felt real hot. The rest of the country’s sizzling, maybe it’s our turn to fry.
And yessir, when I struggled up my hill to the house, tearing off layers, one for winter, another for spring, and reached the only working thermometer, it was practically at the Red Zone, mercury ready to blow right out through the glass tube top. 67 degrees, it read. I cleaned my sweat smeared glasses on my red bandana and peered once more. Couple degrees shy of 70. But the way the temperature was boiling up, I would’ve bet dollars to icecubes we were going to bust right through the big Seven O. I opened up a couple of windows even though the house was a little chilly, but I like to live dangerously. Plus it would be good to introduce some fresh atmosphere into the hermetically sealed rooms that held mostly 2011 gases and odors.
The meteorologists on the evening news would be writing their copy already. Heat alerts and advisories. Don’t lock your dog in the SUV with the windows rolled up — Woofsy will look like a brat in a microwave when you get back. Drink lots of fluids. Tie a wet towel around your neck, but not too tight! Stay indoors if you don’t have a pool. Run the air conditioner at maximum coldness, full fan. Don’t wear your winter coats. And whatever you do, slather on sunscreen every half hour with SPC 500 or more. Use lard if you have it.
Thank God for the TV weatherfolks is all I can say. Save us a body count nobody wants. I just pity the poor yahoos who don’t watch TV, the ones crawling in their longjohns across a lawn rapidly going to desert, desperately trying to reach a faucet. And the sun, the implacable searing sun, cranking toward 70, beating down on their uncovered heads, another victim caught unawares and definitely unprepared by a stealth Sound End summer. Don’t let this happen to you!
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