It came in the mail yesterday. The L.L. Bean catalog landed with a thud on my kitchen counter, heralding ‘coziest women’s clothes & more.’ Inside were flannel robes, Ultrasoft Sweats, down comforters, all the trappings for cold, wet, windswept weather. In August, goddam it.
Why do retailers insist on raining on our parade? It’s summer, for crying out loud, a warm, blissful season. A fleeting interlude. And they’re giving it the bum’s rush. Are they crazy? Don’t they know what horrors lie ahead? I do and I refuse to think about it. But department stores and shops and online retailers won’t let us forget. Oh, no.
Any minute now Halloween decorations will start popping up. Then, in a few weeks, Christmas catalogs will start trickling in, featuring piney, snow-shrouded woodlands. The mere thought sends a shiver through me and dread, lots and lots of dread.
What is the flipping rush? For the first time in months, laundry bags aren’t bulging with waffle-knit thermals and hoodies and heavy wool socks, long johns. Shorts and t-shirts are a low maintenance, lightweight joy. Sweet relief from the layers upon layers upon binding layers normally needed. Although with air conditioning blasting in every public building, you should keep a coat on hand. The indoor climate is a regular Alberta Clipper.
Couldn
’t we enjoy summer for the short time it’s here? Put wint–, put wi–, put raw, miserable weather on the back burner? It’ll be here soon enough, too soon, really. When it arrives, that’s the time to talk about snuggly and cozy and toasty, but until then shut the hell up. No one wants to be reminded. Oh, wait, do they?
Let’s see a show of hands. Who’s ready to put up the storm windows? Gas up the snowblower? Scrape the windshield? Put bare feet on a cold floor? Anyone? Okay, a few nut jobs, but tough noogies, majority rules. Summer’s welcome to stay as long as it likes — forever, even.
Copyright © 2015 Publikworks
the whirly girl 
8 responses to “: fall arrived presorted :”
The heat in Texas is heating a balmy 105 daily but I keep a sweater handy, in part to protect my clients from my tattoos and in part because of air conditioning. We won’t start cooling off until October, even then we don’t really need Winter clothes. Of course, North Texas where I live actually does have a winter (really) and so for two months out of the year we do wear winter clothes, it is nice to actually have a wardrobe change, but LL Bean doesn’t have an audience here.
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See, now that’s just mean. Do you have to rub it in? August has been the only warm month this summer. June and July were no-shows, essentially, cool and overcast. September is warm sometimes, but I’m not counting on anything. Except a long, miserable wint– You know.
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Yet still they keep the offices at a bone chilling 72, who thinks this is comfortable?
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Men in suits, that’s who. Put them in sleeveless tops and short skirts and thin fabrics. See how they like it.
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Things would shrivel up and they would have innies instead of outies. That would be interesting…
;)
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They wouldn’t think so :o)
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You have a point. I am enjoying summer myself. The long evenings give me plenty of time to compile my Christmas list.
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Ha, me, too. An endless summer is right there at the top :o)
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