Page 122: "That's Hot!"

Howdy, new neighbors! Yeah, we're from a few houses down. Congrats on moving into the neighborhood and we'd like to give you a big rousing WELCOME to Texas. Glad you're here. Say, is your icemaker hooked up and running back there? It is? Good. NOW EMPTY YOUR ICE BUCKET into this here ice chest, real nice and slow like, and nobody will get hurt. Yes, this is a real BB gun. Have you ever spent a weekend picking shiny copper BB's out of your rear end? No? Oh, this would be a terrible time to find out what it's like. Enough small talk. Trigger finger is so sweaty, it could go slip-n-slide on this boomstick any second. YOUR ICE. NOW! YES, THROW IN THOSE FROZEN PEAS, TOO. Oh, and welcome to the cul-de-sac!

The events in the preceding story are fictional. Well, for the moment. But heat has a way of making people sweat, and when people sweat, they get angry. And when they get angry, bad things happen. It's gonna turn ugly, folks. If this "high pressure zone" and 106 degree temps continue, even our saintly grandmothers are going to go vigilante for some refrigerated air and a bucket of ice cubes.

I was sitting in the Batcave, drenched with sweat. I called down to Engineering. "Nunzilla, this is the bridge! Set A/C to MAX! We need cold air in 3 minutes or we're all dead!"

"That's all I can give ya', Capt'n!" Nunzilla yelled. "The A/C can't take much more o' this!"

Lord. That's what I get for having an Irish nun for the head of engineering. I should have sprung for a full blooded Scotsman. Why, Scotty could have produced cold air with a kleenex, a transistor, and a fingernail clipping. What do I have? Three A/C units gasping for air like Rush Limbaugh on a mountain bike. I was beside myself. "Nun! Jettison the warp core or something. Just frikkin' figure it OUT. Kirk out!"

Through the heat and on a completely unrelated note, my mind vaguely recalls my favorite Scotsman joke -- of course, Scottish jokes always involve the renowned cheapness, frugality, and drinking of the Scots.

A tipsy Scotsman was in the outhouse when he accidentally dropped a dollar into the loo. "Oh dere," Angus said. "It aren't worth a wee dollar to go ahfter it!" So he pulled out a ten and threw it in. "But it's cert'ly worth goin' ahfter eleven dawlarhs!"

Yes, folks, it's hot. Clearly, The Landlord is determined to keep the thermostat set to INFERNO IN JUNE for yet another week over Texas. If it keeps up, I suggest we all move to the Wal*Mart, right over near the dairy aisle... there is always a February breeze blowing over the milk and cheeses.

How hot is it? Mrs. Kathryn reports that the eggs at the grocery store can only be bought pre-poached now.

It's so hot that my elderly Great Aunty Murle reports she saw the squirrel in her backyard "panting and fanning his nuts, trying to keep 'em cool..."

"Now, that's hot!"