The Third Try

It is not easy to get these written. The problem is, I want them to be perfect but I always find mistakes. So, I need to fix them and the program won't because.....I don't know why it won't edit. So I erase the whole thing. By then I am so ticked, I don't want to write.

Anyway....

During this hot spell, I read in the paper that research shows that "if you are over 65, heat is a special problem because an older body can't sense temperature changes so well. The problem is complicated by the fact that none of us think we are old." They got that right!

I was lucky enough in July to go to Orlando to see Nick Belton in "Hair." (He was wonderful and he does not know this story.) I was suffering from forest fire smoke and was coughing my head off. It had been going on for three weeks and three doctors. I thought, "How am I going to drive through the fire zone and not cough. I almost didn't go. After a certain age, women have "fallout" from coughing (laughing, sneezing etc.). But I went, well prepared, into the zone.

I had no trouble - until I got to the parking lot. I was drinking my usual, a large MacDonald's watery diet coke in a styrofoam cup, and as I grabbed my billfold to pay for parking, I put the cup between my legs. Unfortunately, the bottom of the styrofoam sprang a leak that gushed into the seat. My condition was localized "wet." I sat there in my puddle and considered the options. I couldn't go in - it was too early. I had no other pants - why would I think to bring a second pair of pants. I'm not so old I need a diaper bag. Whatever had happened, I had to get dry. Who would believe it was diet coke? I mean, a woman my age.

So I got out and assessed the situation. There in front of me was the hood of my car. Aha! I leaned across the front of the car to let the sun hit my fanny. That worked only until the parking lot started to fill up. "Mommie, look at that woman hugging her car."  Air bum!

Mildly concerned (panicked), I noticed these large, round concrete balls that would be perfect to sit on. (Think pure thoughts.) They were very hot from the sun so I decided to literally iron my pants dry. I moved from hot ball to hot ball to hot ball to hot pants to dry pants to "On with the show!"

(I know. I know.  But [the operative word here] no one could make this up.)

Finally....

Today, at Winn Dixie, I decided I would like to buy some beer. The young man....a very young man asked me if I wanted the beer in a bag. In my best gangster voice I said, "Yes, put it in a dark, brown paper bag, kid" I'll be dipped if he didn't get a brown paper bag and asked, "Will this do?" The lady behind me burst into laughter and said, "He didn't get it. Oh cripe. I'm older that I thought."

Aren't we all?

But we know what's hot.