Siouxsie and the Banshees once recorded a song called "92 degrees", which featured an intro sampling some obscure film in which a tense-sounding man is hypothesizing about how temperature affects peoples' moods. It went something along the lines of, "anything less than ninety-two degrees is tolerable; anything more, and you're too tired to move, but at just ninety-two..." and it trails off with ominous portents implied. We have had a rash of what could be called, in no uncertain terms, hot weather here--blisteringly hot (no kiddin'. The news warned people of potential burns from road and sidewalk pavement alike), stiflingly hot (I have watched my poor kittens struggling to take in enough air to cool their little mouths), and even dangerously hot (no joke here. The news has reported a health advisory for the elderly, the infirm, and pets). Perhaps there IS something to it...
...After a leisurely meal in an air-conditioned restaurant, Daniel and I thought we would get our grocery shopping done because it is later at night, and there is less likely to be overcrowding, tension, and rude people (though there WAS a woman smoking one of those Blue electronic cigs...fuh-REAKY looking, those things are). Because it was so hot today, I wasn't terribly surprised to see folks having the same idea we had--to get out of the heat and lazily stroll around in incandescent lighting with soft, "contemporary" music tunes lulling us into consumer bliss. After selecting our num-nums, Daniel and I moved towards the cash registers for our "fast, fun, and friendly checkout". With ten people in line ahead of us, the checkout was going to be far from "fast", and with the visible clouds of bitterness hovering above us, "friendly" was also off the table, but, I'll be damned if it wasn't going to be fun. Daniel is a great companion for passing the time. He's witty and funny and quick, so I was laughing in minutes. One has to imagine that at least some of the people working for the magazines sold by the checkout have got to be writing with the intention of opening the door to celebrity mock-a-thons. I mean, come on! "Will baby North West end up being friends with baby Blue Ivy?" (I felt myself getting dumber just by typing those words)
Perhaps the others in the store were more surprised than we, or perhaps the heat was getting to them. A bottle-blonde woman with skin the color and texture of a catcher's mitt glowered her way past us to the end of the line, she began to boil over almost immediately. She started by loudly badgering her milquetoast husband (I assume), "I wonder why they don't open up a new li-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-ine here. This is ridiculousssssssssssssssssssss." When the cashier had the audacity to be too busy trying to move people through the line to listen to her whining about the line, Ol' Mittface decided to really raise the stakes (snicker). She threatened to, "call Safeway on the phone. My ice cream is melting!" I can only imagine how that call might go. She'd call Mr. Safeway on his magical grocery phone where he would listen faux-politely then tell her, "How interesting...except, I have millions of dollars so..." *click*
When she got to the point that she was clearly upsetting the cashier (did I mention that she was the only cashier in the entire store?), someone who may or may not have been me politely suggested that if this was the worst thing that happened to her today, her day was pretty f^*%ing good. I mean, she not only had the two legs to wait on the line and the two arms to hold the melting ice cream, SHE EVEN HAD THE MONEY IN HER POCKET TO PAY FOR THE SHIT!
A person who may or may not have been me even invited an old lady with three items in her cart to go first just to watch Mittface's head explode.
Karma is a funny, funny thing, my friends.
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