The older I seem to get, and the crazier the world gets around me, I seem to be having more and more of these “Is it me?” type moments. For instance, we all know prices are getting higher at the grocery store thanks to the 8.5% inflation rate and the companies that seem all too happy to raise their prices along with it (while, yanno, recording record profits, but that’s neither here nor there). But while standing in the grocery store looking at a pound of hamburger registering $9, I’m looking around frantically at anyone else just stupefied by this. Is it me? Am I the only one that is simply not grilling burgers this weekend? What the heck happened?
My son is looking for a good, solid truck, and I am the world’s worst at giving advice on how or what to buy in a truck since the closest I’ve been to one was in 1991 when my last truck stranded me between Warrensburg and I-70. So I’ve been having my friend look for used trucks. And this is a guy I absolutely trust with my life. He sent us a truck with a text that read, “THIS is the ONE! Buy this one today!” and it was a 2005 truck with 175,000 miles on it for $19,000. What? Is it me or did we not used to buy trucks over 100,000 miles? Or anything over 100,000 miles? My last truck only made it 75,000 miles before it left me in a ditch one mile short of the Warrensburg exit truck stop.
But perhaps the best example of this “Is it me?” mentality has been related to springtime weather. Or what my memory serves me as what we used to call springtime weather. I recall baseball practices outside in shirt sleeves the week after Daylight Saving Time ended. I recall staying out until the streetlights came on in nothing but a zip up jacket. I recall the windows being open in March and not closing until July because our attic fan handled the mild air.
And now I look around at sweatshirts on top of hoodies. I look at gloves and long johns. I look at tattered flags because of the constant 30 mile per hour winds that have been seemingly howling since mid-February. Is it me? Am I remembering spring wrong? We’ve been walking our dog nearly every day since February and it is an adventure of what to bring to account for the weather. Nope. Needed an extra jacket today. Only needed to zip up the jacket that day, but my hat blew off because of the wind. Are those snowflakes?
Now I know, the old adage about if you don’t like Missouri weather wait five minutes. But that’s supposed to be in May and June when it’s tornado season. We’re supposed to have an actual spring that is at least three months long. We seem to be going from winter to breezy hell to winter every week for eight weeks now.
I’m not asking for San Diego weather here, people. I just want to walk my dog without it blowing away and without me having to buy a parka in April. Is it me?
(Answer his question of ‘Is it me?’ by engaging Chris Kamler on Twitter, where he is @TheFakeNed)