One Brick Short

With the beagle at the end of her leash and a couple of plastic Kroger bags waded into my pocket (don’t ask what they’re for) I stalk Rutledge on the first doggie walk of the New Year.

Tis a glorious day God, or global warming, has brought us. The sun shines damn near blindingly and every single squirrel in the region is out looking for their nuts after seroius rodent parties from the past year. People, however, are few and far between.

I like it that way.

It’s so nice! It’s so warm! the kind of January day that makes you wonder if there really isn’t something to this global warming, after all. It also makes me wonder whether the Earth is really getting warmer or is it just returning to its natural state. Maybe we’re just recovering from the post-comet apocalypse that turned dinos into oil. Maybe the Earth is really supposed to be a gigantic swamp filled with lizards and snakes and things that eat you whole and you slide through their slithery bodies, making a big lump like a mouse in a boa constrictor, you know, sort of like a law that would help out the common man when it’s going through Congress.

What if humanity, scraggily, moth-eaten wisp of a species that it is, is an aberration? What if the world was really made for reptiles and roaches (no reference to serial rapists and trigger-happy robbers is implied but it’s OK to infer)?

Whether our fault or our orbit’s, I don’t remember this many nice days in December and January, even when living in North Carolina. Although I like the warmth—yeah, I know I used to wear longjohns and parkas up in The Great White North of Minneapolis-St. Paul, but I don’t care how we used to do it up there—I’m getting a bit worried about my lifestyle changes. I’ve already traded the large carbon footprint Ferrari in on a Corolla and the business jet has been swapped for a 65-mpg-in-the-city Buell Blast, but what’s next? I refuse to change the plans on my 22,000-square-foot house in Ivy on the five acres in the conservation easement.

Hey, it’s OK, we’re taking the toilet out of the 19,000-square-footer to comply with the easement requirements. Really, everything’s fine. We’re good stewards.

Dang, where was I? I hate it when my train-of-thought gets stuck just outside of the station.

Whoops, guess I better put the baggies to work, get these candidates off the street and get myself back to the house.

Happy New Year, y’all.