Go Go Global Warming

Admittedly, I'm ok with a late November hurricane that has us in water up to our nipples even though we're sixty miles from the coastline if it means that my January's don't dip below fifty degrees.

By God I'm a heat slut of the first order.

I'm the guy in Florida in August with the rental car air turned off and windows down.

Baked, not fried? Hell, why not both.

So today was the dark day I'd been avoiding for the last week. Today marks the end of life as we know it until some time in early May.

Today we turned the heat on.

I'd been hiding from the need to do it since the weekend. We had a glorious Saturday and Sunday, working and playing outside, all warm and sweaty in the sun. Everything was ok. And of course we came in with that healthy pre-carcinogenic glow to cook dinner, watch the sun go down, have a cocktail and...

...get chilly.

NO! We're not cold! Smile and think of England! Summer's still here, if only in spirit.

Ok, we're shivering. Inside but I'm not turning the heat on. Its only early October. Ok, early middle October, but you get the point.

Turning the heat on is an innocuous harbinger of a larger, darker evil.

Its like the first zit you get. Harmless enough at first but your days of playing in sandboxes and pulling girl's hair are over. The end of childhood is in sight. Similarly the first set of prescription reading glasses have the same effect. You're still young and virile but you have to whip these on your nose to read. Vitamin E for skin health is going to give way to BP meds and Viagra in the not too distant future. Your young adult years are done for, sonny.

Sure, today's a little chilly but if you move around, you'll warm up. Trouble is your day at home needs to be in front of a computer and on the phone so there's no opportunity to walk about, rake leaves, chuck wood, chase the cats out of the bomb shelter and so forth. Sedentary, you start to chill. Hopefully you stare out at the sky hoping for the cloud cover to break and the sun to come out but let's face it, unless you just recently built a 120 foot magnifying glass over the house, your ass is going to be cold.

So its down to the basement, dust off the ogre in the corner that in a few month's time is going to be gulping dollars you used to lay down on cervesas y limone on the back patio, flip the red switch from "Off and carefree" to "On your back like an insane monkey until spring" and let ol' farter fire up to take the chill off.

I'm comfortable, but decidedly unhappy. The beast of the basement is back. The high of the day barely matches my birth year. The shorts are in the back of the closet and the sweatshirts are front and center.

I'll let you know when I turn the old bastard off in spring. In the meantime, if anyone wants to fire off a sequential series of M-80's having the effect of tilting the 24 1/2 degree global incline to the sun more to our favor...

I promise, I won't call the cops or your mom.

Bunny on.