There was a moment in late June—as I flipped the egg I was frying on my thigh and checked the biscuits baking in my cleavage—when I asked myself, “Is it me, or has it been really, really, really hot lately?”How hot was it? Well, one special day it got up to 106 degrees. Apparently that’s the hottest it’s been here since sometime in the 1980s. And we all know how hot it was in the ’80s. Kidding. Nothing was hot in the ’80s.But there were days when … well, it was so hot, I saw a funeral procession in a Dairy Queen drive-through.It was so hot, I cooked my Pop-Tarts in my hot pockets.It was so hot, Satan called. He wanted hell back.I’m telling you it was hotter than Rush Limbaugh at a dumbass convention. I mean, I’m making s’mores—in my navel. I was buying popsicles, but I wasn’t eatin’ ’em. I was wearin’ ’em. I ate jalapeños just to cool off.I’m just sayin’ … it’s been kind of warm.Let’s see now … we had a chilly autumn in May and a menopausal furnace-blowing fire in June and, so far, a hot and muggy July. Exciting. I can’t wait see what August has in store. Here are my predictions:The rest of this month will be: Hot. Not furnace-hot, just hot-enough-for-ya hot. But monsoon season has begun spitting on us—like a toothless hillbilly eating watermelon—bringing the temperature down to a manageable 80 to 85 degrees. But that heat’s gonna crank up again. I predict that it’ll just get cloudy and bring heat and humidity. And we’ll all asphyxiate in our living rooms.Gotta love that. And yet … I don’t.While we were teased by a chin-dribble of rain here in Albuquerque around the Fourth of July, over in Santa Rosa they got two feet of hail. It covered the ground in ice … in July. We get the Devil’s underpit, and they get Bing Crosby singing “Silver Bells.” Dang.I’m old enough to remember when we could count on the seasons here in New Mexico. Yes, I played in the snow in winter, frolicked in the flowers in spring, went swimming to cool off in summer, and … what did I do in autumn? Oh yeah. I worshipped the pagan gods and goddesses. Good times.Well, that was way back in 19[muffled], and it was all worked out for us. It was paradise. (Naturally, without the strategically placed leaves and the talking snake.)Of course, since then we’ve been sucking Mother Earth dry, and we’re paying for it. Literally. We’re buying snow tires in July. When I say “we,” I mean you. And when I say “you,” I mean you if you live in Santa Rosa, but still …I don’t know if anyone told you—and this time when I say “you,” I mean, um, you—but this isn’t “Star Trek,” buddy. When the Earth goes totally off-kilter and we’re all sucking sun into our lungs, we can’t just hop on the next shuttle outta here and go plant squash and tomatoes over on Ceti Alpha I. (Besides the giant pincer worms on that planet would burrow into your brain before you could say, “Sally, pass the Miracle Grow.”)Still there are folks out there who will say, “There ain’t no such a thing as global warming. Nothing the Rapture won’t fix. Now gimme one of them popsicles, heathen.”What does all this weird weather mean? All I can tell you—in my own humble Chicken Little kind of way—is that: We’re doomed! Doomed, I tell you! Doomed! Well, eventually. And every year “eventually” seems more and more like “now.”What do you want? You want me to say, “No, pumpkin, that’s not your hair on fire.” Or “Just keep having kids like a human salad shooter and sucking down big oil, and everything will be peachy.” Sorry, Sunshine: Not only is the emperor naked and in need of new threads, if we don’t get going with solar, going green and all those other silly “saving the planet” options, the wieners you’ll feel sizzling next summer might be your own. Big owie.In the meantime, do you know where I can get a sunblock lotion that’s SPF 10,000+ and a pair of sunglasses that’ll keep my eyes from bursting into flames? Yeah. Thought not.
Hot, Hot, Hot
5 min read
