WORRIED WEATHERMAN BLUES

Worried weatherman?

That’s what you get at the top end and the bottom end.

It’s either hotter than a firecracker or colder than an ice cube.

So everyone else can just relax, right?

But if you’re a worried man, or woman, you need to check it out.

How hot is it?

Put your cell phone on a table in the sun it shuts down until it cools off.

If you take a nap in the shade and you dangle your foot off the lounge chair without checking, it will get roasted.

Me: What’s it like living in a place where a flat tire in the wrong place is life threatening?

B: We always have water in the car, a fully charged phone, take precautions, and it still happens.

The further down the climate change line we go the more likely it will happen more often.

If you had a choice, would you rather freeze to death, or burn to death?

Those choices get more real when you open an outside door and the heat rush feels similar to opening an oven to take cookies out.

You know the feeling? The heat blast in the face when you lean over with an oven mitt on one hand to pull the sheet of cookies out quickly.

Now we’re the cookies?

Sauna Guy Says

It’s all about conditioning.

That’s the first part. People who live in heat, extreme heat, understand the consequences of bad planning.

Hot weather doesn’t always worry the weatherman, but it does when the records fall.

One hundred ninety degrees is sauna weather, not worried weather.

Except a sauna is a confined space, not a city, a state, or a region.

You don’t take your car in the sauna; you don’t pass through a sauna in order to go where you need to go.

Yesterday I lifted weights then went outside to rest.

It was 113, not 190 like a sauna, so no big deal?

I closed my eyes and listened to the wind, the birds, and talking. But there was no talking since no one sits out in high heat.

Maybe it was my internal monologue?

“What’s the point here? Why am I the only one out? I’ll call my wife. Oh, my phone is overheated. I’ll take a nap. My foot feels hot.”

Lively talk.

But there’s more.

Worried Weatherman At Night

All day the sun cooks, bakes, and fries everything.

You’ve had hot days, I’ve had hot days, but not this hot for this long?

Then things cool down at night.

Things are supposed to cool down at night.

We’re supposed to cool down at night if nothing else does.

But if a monsoon hits in your sleep things change.

Like air conditioning. Cool and calm? No.

Me: ZZZZZZZZ

Wife: The power’s out.

Me: ZZZZZZ

Wife: Wake up, the power’s off.

Me: ZZZZ-what? Shower?

Light in the window flashes like a shorted out street lamp.

Something thumps against the widow.

It’s sideways rain and lightning.

As if scalding sun all day isn’t enough, now it’s a power shortage in a heat dome monsoon.

That high pressure, also known as a heat dome, has been around the Southwest for weeks, and when it moved, it moved to be even more centered on Phoenix than ever, Smith said.

All of the southern U.S. has been under a heat dome with temperature records shattered from California to Florida and the globe itself is the hottest its been on record for much of the summer.

So the power goes out, no air conditioning, and now what?

I walk down a stairway from the fourth floor to find people milling around, doors open, and lightning flashing outside.

I took a look outside to see some bolts, but only got the reflection flash.

For my trouble I did pick up a flashlight.

Then I walked back up four flights with the news.

No power and nothing we could do.

Or was there?

The worried weatherman says, “Nope, nothing.”

From 2017.