Folks up in the Boundary have been posting to Facebook about the hot weather. I can sympathize. The temperatures here have been up in the 40s. Record highs for this time of year.
I asked my cousin Don why, considering the heat, he lived here. After all—he’s retired, he has options. Granted his wife is still working, but when you consider how blasted hot it gets here I’d think divorce, or at least a separation, would be a valid consideration.
Don told me that it’s usually only this hot for a week or two, “then it gets bearable.” I told him there are some places on the planet where climate goes beyond ‘bearable’. In fact some locales are known to have enjoyable weather.
I spent the first night in my new digs without an air conditioner. The next morning my mother had a doctor’s appointment because her knee was bothering her. Air conditioners were selling like hotcakes around here last week so I picked mom and sis up a bit early. We could do some shopping on the way to the doctors’ office.
Using the phone I managed to find a big box store where they had three air conditioners left. I drove straight there – it took only ten minutes – but by then they’d all been sold already.
It was time for mom’s doctor appointment so we headed over there. I told mom and sis they could go in and see the doctor while I stayed in the car and phoned around to more stores.
It was after 11 a.m. now and I was getting desperate. I gave up phoning the mainline big box stores and tried calling people in the trade – the AC service companies. Bingo! Found a place with three in stock – but they weren’t willing to hold one for me. They said the phone was ringing non-stop and it was first come – first served.
Fear took over! I rushed into the clinic, found the treatment room where mom and sis were waiting for the doctor and started hustling them out of there. Just as I got them on their feet and heading toward the door the doc walks in.
“Have I made you wait too long,” he asked?
“Sorry no time to explain,” I told him. “We have to go NOW! It’s nothing you’ve done sir.”
Fear can shift your priorities. I now owe my mother’s doctor an apology, but I got myself an air conditioner.
It didn’t help me the next afternoon when I was stuck in the afternoon rush hour traffic jam. It wasn’t so much that I was stuck in it, more like I was the cause.
I had run out of gas and was blocking a lane of traffic on a major route through town. I phoned the automobile club and was flabbergasted to hear the expected response time would be over an hour. I guess here in the big city a car blocking traffic in rush hour is just the norm.
Of course, being from Boundary, what do I know about traffic jams? After all, they once had to cancel the traffic jam in Midway because Judy had her truck in the shop.
A radio ad for an Oregon real estate company made me realize my good fortune. One of the benefits about the property being advertised was “close to coffee”. Lucky for me the place I am renting has that too. It’s called the kitchen.