Thoughts on Stealing a Lawn Mower

 

by Pa Rock 

Weatherman

(Note:  The following is being penned on Sunday afternoon for posting Monday while I am on the road to beautiful Mountain Home, Arkansas, for a medical appointment - in case anything sounds chronologically off-kilter.   It made sense as I wrote it, for the most part.)

I lived in and around the Valley of Hell (Phoenix, Arizona, and its environs) for the better part of a decade, until retiring a dozen years ago, and if there is one thing I completely understand, and there probably isn't, it would be hot weather and the debilitating effect that it has on old humans and old dogs - and Fred Damn Almighty it has been hot in the Ozarks this week!  Not just hot, Phoenix hot!

West Plains, Missouri, was under a 'heat advisory' last weekend which was set to expire on Sunday evening, but as that deadline drew near, the advisory was extended to Tuesday evening - and then to Friday evening, and finally (here's hoping!) it is set to finally expire for good at 8:00 this evening (Sunday).

It's 2:30 p.m. on Sunday as I sit at the living room window banging out tomorrow's blog-posting.  Alexa says it is 98 degrees F outside with a promise (threat) that it will hit one hundred before "Ol' Sol" gets pulled on over toward Phoenix as our tragically mistreated planet spins ever onward and slowly turns to nothing but scorched earth and dust in the wind.  There was a small cloudburst a few minutes ago that lasted all of two or three minutes.  It's only impact was to settle the dust for now, but we'll take what we can get.  Alexa says the heat apocalypse will definitely come to an end  tonight - and tomorrow the temperature will be in the eighties with some chance of rain - and then the possibility of rain during the week.  I will hold her to that - and send her a sternly worded letter if it comes to pass that she has lied.

(Not many people know this, but part of the reason it is so Fred-Awful hot in Phoenix is because the city is built directly over one of the largest, oldest, and hottest furnaces in Hell, an ancient cast iron model that covers several hundred acres.   Satan occasionally jogs in across the Sonoran Desert to check on it, and take Joe Arpaio's pulse, and usually manages to get in a few rounds of golf in Scottsdale while he is there.)

One more thing:  an older, medium-sized pickup truck just drove by pulling an older, small-sized pickup truck with a tow rope.  There was an old riding lawnmower in the bed of the smaller truck.  It was so large that it just barely fit in the truck bed.  That seems like a helluva lot of work just to steal a lawnmower!

The heat is getting to me.

Stay cool.