I went to buy groceries, this afternoon, and discovered 3-things:
1: I’m afraid of being rear-ended by the car that is behind because the car behind him, hit him sending him into me.
2: It’s too hot to grocery shop (people in Wally Worlds are never in a good mood on a good day).
3: You probably could fry an egg on the sidewalk, but you will have passed out from the heat before the egg has the opportunity to cook.
I sat behind 20, then 15, then 10, and finally 1, car waiting to get through a light this afternoon, so that I could get to the store. Notice that “I”, there were several “I’s” and no teams on the road with me. Wally Worlds sits at the intersection of highways 75 and 82 and is one big cluster-truck of cars and lights, almost any hour of the day. You have to take the exits—two lanes because of traffic flow—off 75 to get to the lights (3 in all) that lead you around and about to Wally World. We, a cluster of approximately 25 cars, were sitting on the highway exit ramp because there was a car that could not or would not move under its own power.
It’s a very rare day, indeed, when you cannot find a friendly and helpful Texan, and today was that day. I only discovered the problem when I became the 10th car from the light and saw a man, from some vehicle ahead of me, get out of his vehicle—large truck with multiple lights and probably had whistles too—and approach the car at the head of the line. There was a conversation, the door to driver’s side opened, and they began to push the car out of the way. Gee, and the whole time, I had imagined some awful scenario, in which, there was blood, guts, and screaming. Not so, the car wasn’t moving because the heat had gotten to it, too.
I saw the cars ahead of me lane-jumping but had no idea why, and there was little chance for my truck to make the same maneuver as the vehicle beside me had 14-more wheels and wasn’t about to give way to my truck. I kept waiting to hear the sound of crashing metal as one, and then the next vehicle was forced from the rear-end to move creating an awful pile-up of wreckage. Today, is the first time that fear has entered my mind, in a very long time.
The cashier, whose line I graced with my present, could scarcely contain the excitement of my large order as she scanned the food in a less-than friendly manner. People hate the heat, and when it gets hot enough, people hate each other. I felt relieved to leave the store alive but it was a short-lived repast, because the heat continued to climb all the way home. I saw a turtle in the middle of the highway holding a sign that read, “Please run over me, it’s too hot for man or beast and I’m a reptile with a shell.”
There is nothing green alongside the road either. In fact, I think Wally World’s bushes will have to be replaced. They’re browner than the bags once used for groceries. Every stray animal that has been dumped or never had a home is either residing under our house, or under our cedar tree. If it doesn’t rain soon, the oil-rich state of Texas will self-combust and Oklahoma will be hanging onto Missouri for dear life.
