The temperature drops below the melting point of lead and the global warming deniers of Northwest Florida are dancing in the streets, shouting “Autumn!” They’re so happy you’d think explorers had discovered a lost colony of Ayn Rand clones.
It wasn’t always like this. The weather followed expected and reliable patterns. For instance, we’d have our first cool spell about the time people started throwing unopened cans of beer at Mullet Festival musical acts. These days hurricane season is not six months in a year. It’s a reality TV star.
That’s because of global warming. C’mon, guys. In this day of alternative facts and “fake news” (an imbecilic term if there ever was one), even the AR-15 crowd agrees the Earth is growing warmer. It’s the cause that everybody but scientists disagrees on.
Scientists – you know, those folks who sent men to the moon and cured certain kinds of cancer – believe the Earth is growing warmer because mankind is filling the atmosphere with gases that trap heat. The fools.
We all know that global warming is caused by (a) Democrats and environmentalists, (b) the long overlooked Snarglethorpe-Craptation Cycle, or (c) the daemon faerie Gwar. Not to worry. A plucky band of oil companies and billionaires will thwart the scientists’ evil plan to cloud our minds with truth.
Before our weather history is lost to the misty depths of alternative facts, let me give you a brief rundown of what it was like before the climate decided to go off its meds.
AUTUMN: It started in October, not January. That first cold front sweeping through the area brought a freshening breeze of deliciously cool, dry air that restored a person’s sanity after summer’s steamy ferment, like how I hope the mid-term elections go. You would open all the windows and doors to your house and let it air out, unworried that the neighbor’s 15-year-old pervert was spying on you with a drone. For Halloween, kids dressed as princesses or pirates. The really scary Harvey Weinstein outfits didn’t come along until later.
WINTER: Winter started the day after Halloween. It was a rule or something. The days grew colder, the skies grayer, the waistlines fatter, and the Christmas specials more abundant. We had Christmas specials starring all your old favorites – Rudolph, Frosty, the Grinch, Charlie Brown, Steve Bannon, Stalin, and the daemon faerie Gwar. Sometimes the temperature dropped below the freezing mark. Kids all over town danced in the streets, celebrating the layer of ice atop the bird baths, while the birds themselves perched nearby, fuming with their tongues hanging out. Good times.
SPRING: You know the old cliché that mentions “April flowers”? That expression has its roots, if you’ll pardon the pun, in the fact that flowers once bloomed in April, not January, when the weather warmed up from winter’s icy chill. If you want an icy chill today you watch the 5:30 news, followed by the weather forecast: “Clear skies and cool temperatures followed by a brief period of 9 million degrees heat courtesy of the Democratic People’s Running Dog Autocratic Basketball and Porn-Lovin’ Republic of North Korea, Death and destruction afterwards. Take your umbrella!”
SUMMER: The weather pattern in summer followed a script: sunny skies in the morning, temperature rising into mid-80s by mid-morning, clouds dotting horizon by noon, thunderstorm springing up about 3, cirrus haze from dissipating storm by 5, followed by darkness. Today, the script goes like this: lightning, thunder and tarantulas falling from sky in morning, with temps and humidity approaching level of chicken noodle soup that has exploded in microwave. Multiple waterspouts disrupting Crab Island party by early afternoon, with 300-foot-tall squid trying to pull down the Emerald Grande at 5. Scared off by fireworks.
Whether it was caused by the silly notion of greenhouse gases, or the more likely explanation that the daemon faerie Gwar is suffering a post-modernism bout of angst, the weather has changed over the years, and there’s not a darned thing you can do about it. So crank up the AC, settle behind the wheel of that Nimitz-class pickup, and get ready for the ride of your life.
Gwar is a band, you know. Turn on the radio.
Contact online editor Del Stone Jr. at (850) 315-4433 or dstone@nwfdailynews.com. Follow him on twitter at @delsnwfdn, and friend him on Facebook at dels nwfdn.
