Rumbling down the road, warm and happy and well fed, it’s the best I’ve felt in 6 weeks. This is the second consecutive winter I’ve gotten very sick and the brutal weather has had a multiplying effect this round.
It’s a huge release to bask in the simple comfort of dash heat and mobility within a weather tight cab. Freedom! My truck is overdesigned for most conditions but perfect for right now. I’m enjoying the trip.
Reluctantly, I turn on the radio to check the weather. It goes as expected:
First, America’s Pravda (NPR) breathlessly informs me that stupid bullshit happening in a different time zone is eminently about to cause war, famine, and pestilence. This can only be averted if the right people are in power. Where’s the vat that hatches these “right people”? They’re never remotely like me. Then again, people “like me” don’t want to run things. There’s a big difference between viewing power as a burden and a pleasure.
Before I wrap up that train of thought, there’s a new topic; an urgent statewide issue that’s a big deal even though I’ve never heard of it. As required by propaganda and tradition, NPR tells me I must spend tax dollars on some boondoggle in a city I never visit. I’m not sure if it’s light rail I’ll never get to ride or a stadium for sports I don’t watch but if I don’t want to fund it, I’m a jerk. In fact, I’m probably racist, and sexist, and maybe Hitler. I should be put up against a wall and “corrected”. They’re getting more rabid with time and I wish they’d chill out and maybe take a nap. Perhaps baby boomers are not taking well to the concept of mortality? Hard to say and I’d rather not peer too deep into that dark well.
The next story is that it’s my fault the earth is going to warm up and sink Miami. In a related nugget of processed information, I should buy a Tesla because there are chargers everywhere. I can’t help but grin as my meaty truck churns through the blizzard. A Tesla in these conditions would be lucky to make twenty miles before it became an iced battery on subsidized wheels. Not that you could charge it at three places within 100 miles of here. And when it froze, who would tow it home? A bigger Tesla?
Trying to keep a positive mental attitude, I idly wonder if Miami might someday look like Venice? Then I wonder about Thonis-Heracleion. That’s an archaic Egyptian seaport near the Nile. It’s a few miles off Alexandria and 20’ below the waterline. I was reading about it a few days ago. I forgot the details about how it sank. (I notice ancient cities “sank” but modern cities fall prey to “rising water”. We should look into that.) I could joke that someone owned a Dodge 1,200 years ago, but maybe it was something obvious like an earthquake? Did it sink in one day, like the script of an awesome disaster-porn B movie? Did it fade away a fraction at a time over centuries… like Venice? There are a couple dozen such cities all around the Mediterranean. The articles I read always think the only issue is the source of Plato’s stories about Atlantis. Isn’t a sunken city cool even if it isn’t Atlantis? I’ve been meaning to read up on them. I’m never clear how they went from seaport to seafloor. “Earthquake” seems too simple and glib. Meanwhile, modern people have reclaimed land from the sea in the Netherlands, China, and Dubai.
This is all crimethink.
I entertain the idea of future archaeologists finding a statue of Don Johnson from Miami Vice on the seafloor, a mile or two off the shore of modern Florida in 500 years. They could put it in a museum and make bored kids look at it. “This is the hero of an ancient fable where a law enforcement officer in a pink shirt fired primitive weapons at drug bootleggers. Bootlegging is a term from back before all the fun drugs were legalized. OK kids it’s lunchtime so take your Soma and have some Soylent Green. A standardized multiple-choice test will follow this virtual tour, so prepare for it by inserting a ‘Grade-O-Tron’ in your ear.” Add a futuristic Canadian finding a Tesla frozen into a glacier (I imagine somewhere near Edmonton) and it’s the beginning of a fine science fiction story.
With a little heat and a change of scenery I’m feeling happier and thinking fun thoughts. The imagination is a wonderful thing.
Sadly, the “news” now dives below the bar and it sucks me down. Some dude wore a red hat (which is a dog whistle, secret squirrel, decoder ring, call to arms, barely hidden from the clever folks who’ve figured it all out while freebasing politics in their dorm room). This triggered an unemployable snowflake college “student”. (Or should I say college “resident”? Doesn’t “student” imply the hard work of actual study?) This, self-selected victim had to cry into his or her (or its) pillow… in front of the press. I’m not sure who did what, but the main point is that it’s just a fucking hat.
I don’t give a shit about college students getting the vapors. Never have, never will. Ideally, it’s reciprocal. If I stick my truck in a ditch and freeze to death, nobody in a college is going to call the press and publicly weep over my frozen corpse. Some of them might be elated another redneck bought the farm.
Also, anyone who freaks out over an item of clothing should be mocked and ridiculed. The press is giving a cookie to every toddler who throws a tantrum. Put down the microphone and administer a wedgie to these drama lamas!
That said, I’m an outlier. I didn’t even fit in with my fellow college students when I was a college student. I didn’t think of myself as a “college student” but rather as a “young man”; because that’s what I was. My education was a self-funded investment in myself, not an excuse to slither though a decade of extended adolescence. The hat weeper is behind schedule. You’re supposed to get over crying about hats when you’re nine; not when you’re twenty.
It’s getting me down. Damn news.
Do I need this? Do I deserve it? Politics has been corrosive as long as I’ve been alive but does it have to bubble over continuously? I just want to know the weather report. I didn’t need reminding there’s a vast stampeding herd of people who’ve nothing to do but disapprove of my existence. Fuck the radio! I click it off and everything returns to peace and quiet. I’d like weather information, but not at the price of getting preached at by losers.
The reason I want a weather report is to decide if I should tank up. My Dodge has a huge capacity so I can procrastinate. Also, funds are a bit low at the moment. Then again, having only half a tank if I get stuck in a ditch is a bad bargain. There are times when you may be forced by necessity to idle a very long time. This is certainly the weather for such situations.
Being a belt and suspenders kind of guy, I pull over at a truck stop. Once again, the door is nearly ripped from my hand when I open it. The bitter cold gives me a coughing fit that doubles me over. By the time the truck is topped off I’m shivering and coughing. When it gets really cold the card readers never work, so I stagger through the wind to pay inside.
I strike up a conversation with the clerk. He looks bored because there are no customers:
“Have you heard a weather report? I was trying to decide if I should fuel up before another blizzard.”
“This isn’t bad enough?” The clerk waves at the window.
He’s got a point. I can barely see my truck through the blowing wind. Even the ice fishermen and snowmobilers are laying low. Amazing how you can recalibrate your definition of “bad weather”. Reality check accepted!
Then a nice thing happens. The clerk sees me coughing and gives me a Jolly Rancher. He’s grazing on a package of them and, without asking, just tosses one my way.
Watermelon. My favorite!
Everyone knows hard candies are good for a bad throat. Brilliant!
Just like that, my attitude improves. The world is all rainbows and puppies. In the depths of a hard winter, simple kindness moves mountains. Also don’t let the press fool ya’. There are plenty of nice people out there. We’re not merely insufferable packs of idiots; those are just the monkeys in front of the cameras. Most of us are remarkably civilized and some of us are quite likable. This guy is a saint. I thank him profusely and promise myself to remember his face so I can be extra nice to him next time I stop.
Almost home now. The main road is windblown clear; polished. But when I get to my dirt road the story changes…
More to come.
A.C.
Drama Llamas
lmao