Yesterday I had to take my kid to the dentist again, and so once again I didn’t get to the gym before heading in to the store for work. Since I wouldn’t make it home till 9:00 that evening, I decided to take a walk at lunch time.
When I drove up to the store, it was 60 degrees out, with a mild breeze. I stepped out the back door. The temperature had dropped. To 27, actually, as I discovered later. At the time, it just registered that it had gotten a bit cold, and what a shame that I hadn’t brought a jacket.
Also it was windy.
Once my family went camping in a windy state. Our tent blew away a couple of times and we had to re-stake it. Then we had little conversations all night: was this normal, or were they having a hurricane?
We didn’t want to be wusses if this was just normal wind in their area, but on the other hand, we didn’t want to stay out there in a tornado thinking, “Hmmm, they have a lot of wind here.”
It turned out to be normal, I guess. We didn’t hear people talking the next day about the Great Blow of 1998 or anything.
That was how the wind was.
I continued my walk, but by the time I returned to the store, I felt that I had been out in an Arctic gale. My face was entirely red, and my hair had that Arctic explorer look to it, though admittedly without ice on it, so it could have been worse. The Princess couldn’t believe I had gone for a walk in that.
I went back in to continue my forays into The Dark Art. I was doing one of those where you look and see what people have searched for on the way to the site. “Penguin Education,” one visitor had wanted, and another was looking for “bulletin boards for penguins.” I wouldn’t have thought there were that many penguin trainers around, but I did learn in the process that there is a Penguin High School in Tasmania. My personal favorite was the searcher for “gripping adverbs,” but their Google page was in the Cyrillic alphabet, so who knows what they might have had in mind.
Anyway, in the midst of this, I took a phone call.
“Do you have a bulletin board set with glasses?”
I mentioned the old sunglasses set from Scholastic, and that it was no longer being made. Sorry.
“Is there one with a schoolhouse with glasses?”
No, I’d never seen one like that, but we did have some schoolhouses. If she’d come in, I’d be glad to help her.
“Do you have one with a schoolhouse with glasses and a big bird with glasses and a drum with glasses and a ruler with glasses and a —“
I may have shown the whites of my eyes to The Princess. You can’t laugh, after all, and you can’t even say, “Dear, go get your keeper and I’ll talk to them.” You have to continue as though it were normal. I did, however, stop suggesting that she come in.
Was going for a walk in high winds and below freezing temperatures more nuts than calling people are reciting loony poems about glasses? I haven’t decided yet.
I get calls like that:
“Do you have sofas.”
Yes.
“What about leather sofas?”
Yes let me get you to a salesp-
“What about leather sofas with consoles built in?”
Let me get you to a s-
“I’m looking for one in brown.”
@chanthaboune – You’re describing a normal, if irritating, phone call. I had one of those, too. “Do you have center materials?” and then eight minutes later it transpires that she meant a Where the Wild Thing Are puzzle all along. The glasses woman was reciting the glasses thing in an odd singsong voice with no hint of sanity. Not the same.
There is this cultural construct called a “Weather Forecast.” On the day in question, the Weather Forecast said: “The high today will be around 60, falling throughout the day into the 20s. There is a high wind warning; expect gusts out of the north as high as 40 miles per hour.” The day before the day in question, the Weather Forecast had said that this was going to happen. Weather Forecasts are available at no charge, not only on radios but also on computers — for example, one can go to http://www.wunderground.com, type in one’s zip code in the search box, and SHAZAM! Information telling one what the weather will be like for the next five days — temperatures and winds and precipitation and storms and all that good stuff — will appear. It’s magic. It allows one to go out into the world dressed to survive until dinnertime; it allows one to know that the car windows should be rolled up; it has all sorts of advantages. It is the sort of thing one can teach one’s children about, if one happens to be a skilled parent.
we had a “flash freeze warning” yesterday. wierdness – I have never heard of that term in my whole entire life. last night left the house to run to target, temp in the car said it was 49 as we drove along we could watch the temp fall. by the time we arrived at our destination the temp was 30 and the parking lot was a sheet of ice. it took all of 9 minutes to drive there. like I said, wierdness.
@illgrindmyownthankyou – Yeah, I guess lots of places had that kind of sudden drop. I have also noticed that lots of xangans are feeling a little bit lousy. I think (based on no scientific evidence at all) that it is because of the way the weather is changing so quickly. It makes us more susceptible to viruses and stuff, because our bodies can’t adjust quickly enough.
it has been a windy day…
I believe I actually have the ruler with glasses. I might consider parting with it. Did she sound like she’d pay top dollar? Or was she truly just loony?