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Honolulu Lite Charles Memminger |
Long, hot summer
is parching pestsYOU know it's summer when those big hairy cockroaches start flying into your house. And you know it's an abnormally hot summer when the cockroaches' tongues are hanging out and they ask for a cup of water.
It's been a long, hot summer, which is exceptionally strange because summer doesn't technically begin until June 21. I don't care what the calendar says. When I see a cockroach's tongue, it's summer, damn it.
The other way to tell it's summer is that the Board of Water Supply is whining about conserving water. The Board of Water Supply exists chiefly to complain that there either isn't enough water or there's too much of it. Lack of rain makes the board members cranky. Lots of rain makes them positively apoplectic. I guess that's because when there's not much water, at least you can conserve. But when you get 40 days and nights of rain, there's nothing you can do about it. (Kazu Hayashida was my favorite Water Board director until he stepped down. He hated when it rained too much. Here's my imitation of Kazu after a deluge: "My god! Look at all the water! Where are we going to put it? Drink up, everyone, drink up! Please shower 12 times a day!")
Right now the Water Board's bummed because it hasn't been raining. I don't know why it's not raining. I've been doing everything within my power to make it rain. I've opened up the skylights in my ceiling. I've washed my car. I've left clothes outside to dry. I've made intricate Tibetan chalk drawings on my driveway. Everything I usually do that causes it to rain hasn't worked.
WE NEED RAIN really badly, mainly because everything that usually lives outside is moving inside. As far as I can tell, we've got 14 species of ants living in our house now. Some sit by the kitchen sink in little patio lounge chairs, wearing sunglasses and sipping tiny piña coladas. Others hang around by the dog dish, passing time by hauling a single dried dog chow chunk from one end of the pantry to the other.
A gang of centipedes has claimed a corner of the storage room, leaving their hundreds of minuscule rubber slippers cluttering up the doorway. Parched flies cling to the lanai screens hissing "Psst! Hey, buddy, how 'bout a rancid beer? We'll take that old Miller Lite in the fridge."
It's pathetic. And I don't even want to talk about the geckos. What drama queens. One gecko gets a touch of heat prostration and the rest are suddenly wheeling around the house like scaly Sarah Bernhardts, grasping their fleshy throats and panting "Water! Dahling! We must have water!"
Pretty soon the mice will be dancing down the hillside in their usual conga line. We must have rain soon. Lots and lots of rain. I don't care if we don't have any place to keep it. I just can't take another summer of merengue music blasting from under the stove.
See the Columnists section for some past articles.
Charles Memminger, winner of National Society of Newspaper Columnists awards, appears Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays. E-mail cmemminger@starbulletin.com