Limits

There's an old saying: "If you can't take the heat, get out of the kitchen." I'm not sure who said it, but I think it was either Colonel Sanders or Aunt Jemima. Or maybe Ben Franklin. (It could've been R. Lee Ermey, but the word "maggot" is missing, so we'll have to assume it wasn't him.)

Well, I'm not in the kitchen (and despite cooking skills that make Julia Child look like Julia Roberts, I hardly ever go there), but, Dudes...I can't take the heat!

Now, wait just a minute: Before you go filling my inbox with hate mail about how I'm a whiny little spoiled brat who complains about 100° heat in the summer, 2 feet of snow in the winter, and the chirping of those infuriatingly annoying birds in the springtime, let me preface my rant by assuring you that I do have a solution to the problem, which I'll reveal momentarily.

But, man, it's hot! I was doing fine for the last month or so, facing the brutal sun by dipping myself in sunscreen and drinking enough water to fill Hoss Cartwright's hat. I was sweating a lot, talking very slowly to avoid heatstroke, and spending about 17 hours a week doing laundry to deal with all the sweaty clothes. But you never heard me complain.

Until now.

I suspect we're all like that: Jolly and good-natured souls through all sorts of natural hardships, enduring untold brutality at the hands of this heartless planet, until we finally reach our limit and have to say "That's it, Mother Nature...I've had enough!" And I think a lot of Denverites reached that limit this week.

For those of you in the less-fortunate states, or (God forbid) another country, you may be under the widely-held misbelief that Denver has a universally cold and alpine climate. People assume that since Colorado has tall mountains, and tall mountains are generally cooler than lowlands, then ALL of Colorado must be constantly frigid and overrun by elves and reindeer, etc. This is simply not true. Denver gets HOT. Not all humid and yucky inbred-redneck hot like Oklahoma or Arkansas, but still stifling to a degree where you just don't want to go outside after a certain point in the summer.

And we have definitely reached that point. Which brings me to the main question of the day: Why are people so worked up about wanting to "Love this planet" and "Treat Gaia like you'd treat your sister" and stuff? Let's face it, this stinking planet does everything it possibly can to try to kill us and make our lives miserable, from producing rattlesnakes to hurricanes to forest fires and tornados. Mother Nature is unquestionably one nasty dude, and yet all I hear is talk about living in harmony with the environment and taking care not to upset Nature's Delicate Balance.

Delicate balance. Yeah, sure. Humans are the delicate ones, when you look at the big picture...and it's high time we started defending ourselves. After all, it wasn't humans who killed off the dinosaurs and squished their guts and turned them into the oil that we had to spend all our hard-earned time and money cleaning out of the gulf. It was Nature! And it wasn't humans who turned the Middle East into a sand-blasted hell-hole that makes the inhabitants want to kill everyone who lives in any of the nice places; that was Nature, too. These are just the two examples of the macro-environmental nastiness that Gaia has perpetrated upon us...when you look at the smaller scale, you come up with stuff like spiders and scorpions and viruses and politicians, not to mention gnats, flies, and those @#*%! mosquitoes.

Oh sure, we humans have used our ingenuity to build air conditioners and Cozumel resort hotels and Slurpees*, etc., but we've never really looked at solving the actual problem, have we? Well, I say it's time we do that.

All we need to do is correct the earth's stupid axial tilt; that's what causes the seasons. If Mother Nature weren't constantly wobbling like a drunken sailor, then every country on the planet would retain a fairly constant temperature, and we could all move to where we'd be comfortable. The guys who like to go shirtless and sweat all the time could move to the equator, and the folks who appreciate an Eskimo lifestyle could move to Norway. And Denver would be a nice cozy 70° all the time, so we could ride our bikes to work and eat lunch on the patio. Beautiful!

I'm not an engineer, but I don't think this would be all that hard. Get a couple of hero-type guys like Bruce Willis and Ben Affleck, and have 'em mount big ol' planet-straightener jets on a couple of strategically-placed mountains, and before long we'd be as straight and sure as a Frank Sutton haircut. I'm sure it would cost far less than whatever bailout Congress is planning to upchuck next, so it's totally doable. And this, my friends, is why it is important to vote. Let's make "Axial Tilt" the centerpoint of the upcoming election campaign, OK?

In the meantime, stay cool, my friends. And as always, thank you for your support!

*Don't you love the wide variety of Slurpee flavors? From "Cool Runnings" to "Meadowlark Lemonade", they're all delicious. My favorite is "Vanilla Ice".