I Really Must Go

Everybody talks about the weather, but nobody does anything about it.

Mark Twain said that, and everybody who has picked a book up in America (both of you) knows that so I am trotting an old chestnut out.

What you don't know, the rest of the story, as Paul Harvey would say, once the windowpane acid has kicked in and his voice follows an octavial range that makes Coney Island roller coasters look like Kansas, is when Mr. Clemens said it.

Twain sucked deep on a cigar, downed the rest of his mint julep, somewhere in a Hartford July and opined about the meterological conditions to the amusement of all.

Now, if we had caught the old boy in February, it would have sounded a lot different. Like, maybe:

"If if doesn't fucking warm up soon, I'm packing my ass on the next train to Florida, Goddammit!!"

Yes, even Twain had his limits.

So do I. It is the end of February. The shortest month of the year that drags on like a football game with three minutes to play when you want to watch the "Best of Bugs Bunny" at five in the afternoon.

Whaddya mean they stopped the clock??? You can't do that. Time waits for no one. If if waited for me, I'd put my math homework off for another hour!!

Its cold and I'm tired of it being cold. My shorts mock me from the top shelf of my closet. The lawn is the color of a shit stain and delicious little mommys from up the road walk down the street wrapped in something more akin to what you'd place around an uninsulated water heater.

Winter sucks and I'm tired of it. What's more, it's far from over. What's even more, I can't pack my ass to Florida anytime soon.

This winter has been a lot like a Catholic schoolgirl. It started early and hard. December followed the rules to a "T" and it got cold and snowed like hell and we all thought that this is going to be as barren a season as they come. Sort of like freshman year.

January, sophomore year, winter realized that the nuns didn't see everything. The weather lightened up. Even got a little friendly. Most of us thought, hey, a few warm days, some sunshine, I can deal with this. It was like secretly holding hands during homeroom. It might just lead to a little groping between classes.

February though has been like getting caught smoking by Sister Mary Frank Getrude Adolph Roger in the boy's or girl's room. Detention and eyes on the straight and narrow. A day of warmth has been followed by weeks of retractable cold. Sort of like when God closes a door, he also slams a window on your fingers.

But maybe its gotten to me. March is just around the corner, albeit four days away and you might as well term those lockdown at Alcatraz, they seem so long and the new month so far away. You never know though. Junior year and she's looking at a state school that allows boys and girls in the same room, of all things. Might as well get our technique for coyly hiding gum before French kissing down now.

Or maybe Mother Superior is watching and its lockdown time. You never know. March is like that. The hell with lambs and lions, the month is more like a crapshoot during study hall.

Bunny on.