Hot Weather, Horoscopes and Lottery Tickets
Humor by Tom McLaughlin
Next to an ice storm, the three most dreaded words in weather are hazy, hot and humid. This has been the mantra for the past couple of weeks and will lead us through the rest of August and possibly into September. There will be a few brief cools spells, those days that fall below 90 degrees, but entering a car will still be the same as walking into the portals of Hell.
The weather heads on the television channels are being very dramatic with the idiotic “feel like” concept. Here we have a mathematical formula devised by Stephen Hawking where they are supposed to tell us how we feel at a certain temperature. I think some, correctly, call it the Misery Index.
Cuthbert can come into the house after a ride up 270 with the car air conditioner broken. He enters the house and complains to his wife about the heat.
“How hot is it,” she asks.
“Wait a minute, let me turn on the television to see how hot I am supposed to feel,” is the reply.
This idea can be expanded into other walks of life. Formulas will be devised to tell us how we will feel at the beginning of the day or week. The blackboard math may work something like this:
College tuition due + balloon mortgage payment = attempted suicide
Or:
Discovery of house worth 10 X what you paid + can’t move any where else =melancholy
Or:
Son arrested for drugs + it was only pot = relief
These formulas will be available in a book that will become a run away best seller after you thought about writing it = depression.
There are also horoscopes to begin the day that will be replaced by the above formulas. I read mine as a form of entertainment and don’t believe a word of it.
For example mine: from somebody named Holiday Mathias from The Washington Post: (Now whom would you trust, Stephen Hawking or Holiday Mathias?)
“At work make simplicity your goal. (She IS awfully cute!) It may require you to deconstruct your business and build it back up again. (Right! Destroy my book business and build it back up! It only took 15 years to get to where it is today. It provides egg money.) Without ornamentation and clutter, you understand the essence of what you are doing. (How do I get rid of the tattoo which says “Love Always Raymond” when I rediscover my essence as Love Always Paris Hilton?” “Talk about wanting to feel.”)”
The Frederick News Post horoscope, where Republican political reporter Cliff Cumber called Mayor Dougherty a liar the other day in a supposedly unbiased news report, stated: “Conditions are favorable where your material interests are concerned;” and “I am willing to share any good that befalls” is absolutely wrong. I am not going to share anything with any body!
Its mine, all mine!
That’s how I feel when I win the Lottery. Realizing my financial future rests solely in the hands of the Maryland State Lottery and the Mega what ever it’s called, I have taken to purchasing tickets at the local convenience store.
It used to be I would only purchase when the amount was above $10 mil, but now I get excited when I win a free soft drink after examining the cap.
I buy the tickets, but I can never remember when the drawings are held. I can’t remember where I put the tickets and they usually end up between the seats of the car. During my annual cleaning and I watch them being sucked up by the powerful 75 cent vacuum machine at the local car wash as I stare down the hose wishing their return.
Me? I got rid of my cane and am doing fine despite feeling like temperatures and vacuumed lottery tickets.
I might even kiss my ex-wife’s divorce lawyer.
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