Chicken Little
Through the wonders of genetics and youth sports I am in posession of one bad knee. Which I suppose beats two, but one is just one too many. The plus side (if you can call it that) is that I am quite aware of changes in atmospheric pressure. Basically, I'm a walking (well slightly limping) barometer and I am particularly sensitive to changes of weather involving moisture.
This weather is what is cursingly referred to as monsoon season or under definition of the word "the time of year when it is supposed to rain, a lot." But not here bubba. The weather turns muggy, clouds boil up and surrond the hole in the ozone layer around the city and lots and lots of dust blows in from the depths of the desert (we have tons of "danger blowing dust area" signs all over the place). When I say muggy, it's not Chicago muggy, or Michigan muggy, or Maryland muggy or even Florida muggy, it's so much worse; it's Arizona muggy. The temprature still hangs out around in the lower 100's (38 celius) and sometimes pushes the 110's (43 celius) and the sun is almost always still shining. The added moisture locks in the heat so that even at say 11pm at night or 6am in the morning the "humidity index" holds the temprature at just below the century (36.5 celius) mark on a regular basis. In short my loving desert oasis goes from a giant easy bake oven to a city-wide outdoor sauna and stays this way for about 6-7 weeks. Yay. Mental picture in place?
It also doesn't really rain that much. Well it does but for some reason, as I made mention of, the clouds circle the city and it rains just about everywhere in the state EXCEPT in the city. We get enough blowing dust to fill every sandbox in the county, though the actual carress of rain is more rare than a gay man in a Nevada brothel. For this month and a half span of time is when I seriously start considering sticking my glow in the dark chicken legs in a pair of shorts. More than fifteen seconds outside has me covered in a thin layer of sweat; and I will admit, one thing that is noteably worse than being constantly cold & wet (i.e. sonw) is being hot & wet (i.e. monsoon with no rain). My afflication and love affair with my home for 10.5 months out of 12 is legendary; now comes the time of year that I hate being here.
Yesterday I find myself battling 20 mph wind gusts and spitting gritty things out my mouth on my way out of the parking lot and into the local grocer. I shake my fist at the clouds threatening to overtake the city and fouly curse them for producing acclimate weather with no fucking rain in sight. Twenty minutes later, I'm fighting to control the grocery cart as it is under constant threat to leap away and be blown along with contents still inside through the parking lot. All the while, the dust swirls and I'm wiping crap out of my eyes and spitting dirt out of my mouth. Suddenly something HUGE and WET slams into my shoulder and I'm so startled that I drop the bags in my hand and spin around thinking some punk kid has hocked a wind carried loogie that just splattered all over my shoulder. While scanning the parking lot with one eye and I bend to retrieve the fallen groceries and *wham* a HUGE, WET and COLD something smashes into my face. Once again I am startled, this time tripping over the groceries I'm still trying to get into my car and landing uncermoniously on my backside. As the unattended cart careens into a curb, I turn my gaze skyward, casting a puzzled look up at the black clouds over head. I'm assuming my features were as perplexed as a baby deer staring down the barrel of a 30-06 for the first time and then mother nature took that moment in time to turn on the faucet.
The drops were gigantic and the intial shock of cold water against my hot skin sends shivers through me. I quickly hefted all of my sodden bags into my car and proceded to peel off of my shirt and stand with my face up and let myself get drenched. After a few moments I saw one of the cart collectors skipping through the parking lot and gave him a high five and a matching smile at our impecable timing. I even let out an audible "whoop" shaking my soaked hair like a drenched dog.
This is when I noticed the score of people standing under the front awning of the store watching me prance around in the downpour. They were all wearing similiar bemused expressions one and all of which read, "jesus, you'd think this guy has never seen rain before or is some sort of mentally deficient retard." When my face turned to an evil smirk and when they all saw me sprinting in their direction, they became nervous. Fear crept upon their faces when I skidded to a hault in a newly formed puddle startling an old couple who were attempting to exit the parking lot. Here I stood, shirtless, soaked, eyes bugging out of my head, frantically pointing to the sky and my mouth opening and closing for several moments before i finally bellowed:
"THE SKY IS FALLING, THE SKY IS FALLING, CALL THE ROOSTER, THE SKY IS FALLING", at which point I cackled like the wicked witch of the west flung my hands over my head and raced back to my car. All the while screeching out to passing cars, parked cars and no one in particular, the afore mentioned lines.
I'm sure these folks were quite disturbed at my antics, hopefully traumitized and worried about various things like medications I am lacking or if I'm dating their daughter. Personally, I'm sad they couldn't enjoy themselves like me or the cart boy. So fuck them and the horses they rode in on, dearest of diaries. I mean really now, it's not like it rains every day in the desert.
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