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Mother Nature Can't Fool This Fool

Maybe it's time I started paying attention to the weather forecast.

Usually, I'm not so interested in what the meteorologists are blathering on about. If it rains, it rains. So I'll get a little wet going to the car -- big deal. If it's windy, it's windy. So my six dollar haircut looks a little more stupid than usual. Color me unfazed.

"Around October, Mother Nature is schizophrenic, unstable, and downright mean-spirited. And lately, that bitch has had my number."

But this is the time of year, and one part of the world, when the climate from day to day gets a little more variable than may be comfortable. In the summertime, Boston is cozy. Warm, breezy, and occasionally downright balmy. In the spring, it's 'brisk'. And in wintertime, New England is cold. Damned cold, and snowy and gusty -- but predictably cold, and that's important.

In the fall... well, in the fall, New England weather does whatever the hell it wants to do, often in the space of an hour. Around October, Mother Nature is schizophrenic, unstable, and downright mean-spirited. And lately, that bitch has had my number.

If I wear short sleeves, it's forty degrees and windy like a filibustering Congressman.

If I adjust and put on long sleeves, the sun beats hot and heavy like a pair of pimply teens in the back of a Pontiac.

Wore a hat? Gale-force winds. Shoe untied? Flash floods and six inches of mud. Holes in my socks? I wouldn't be surprised at a plague of locusts, so the little bastards could wriggle in there and gnaw at my kneecaps. The raindrops just keep falling on my head.

I only see two options here. First -- and preferably -- I could simply stay in the house for a few weeks. By mid-November, I'll know it's going to be six stupid degrees outside, and I can wear fourteen layers of clothes and a heated jock strap, accordingly.

Of course, it's unlikely I'd be able to finagle a six-week sabbatical from work to escape the weather. I've used most of my sick days already, staying home to catch up on TiVo shows when the recorder fills up. And I'm saving up vacation days for a Boston-to-Brooklyn pub crawl in the spring. That's three weeks of fun and twelve years off my life, if I do it right. And a blood transfusion and criminal record, if I do it wrong. Either way, it's all good.

But in the meantime, I'm stuck with my climatological conundrum. So I've decided to beat Mother Nature at her own game. If the weather looks nasty, I'll go out in a parka and mukluks -- but when the sun heats up, as it inevitably will, I'll be ready. I'll strip out of the winter clothes to reveal shorts and a T-shirt underneath, and stay nice and cool. If she goes the other way, baiting me with warmth and sunshine, I'll go along with it -- but I'll stuff a sweatshirt and long johns down my pants, too, just in case.

Whatever it takes, I'll do it. I'll hide a poncho in my pocket, a windbreaker in my wallet, and a sport coat in my Speedos. That ought to get the ladies talking. Just don't ask where I'm stashing that emergency umbrella. Better to just assume that I'm 'happy to see you'.

With a wardrobe and a half on my person, I should be well prepared for any weather the world whips out. I may look pretty foolish in the morning, but when the weather turns in the afternoon, I'll be the one having the last laugh. Just as long as that umbrella doesn't accidentally open. That'd get the old mukluks in a bunch, for certain.

Comments

Posted by: Chris | November 6, 2006 11:38 PM