Goin' Nuts

We were seeing smoke, almost every day. I'd wake up, walk outside and think somebody must be burning leaves... but then we heard that there were wildfires tearing through the woods. North Georgia was a crazy place, with new flames cropping up every day. The drought did a number on our dear South. We had the hottest, longest summer on record and the skies had no mercy. Our grass went away, til all that was left was moss...my goldfish pond starting looking puny. Nobody wanted to go outside all summer. We waited, not so patiently, for fall, but it never really came. We rolled from Hades right into winter this week, when the sky finally relented and let loose the rain. Drought is a scary thing. Everybody grumbles at first, strangers talk about it to each other in elevators, the weatherman reminds us every hour. But then something wears thin and it begins to worry the earth. We can't help but start to think about what will happen if it never ends. I think about the book of Exodus, about locusts, dust bowls, dying cattle. But then again, I do tend towards the dramatic. Funny, how many things are like the rain after a dry spell. It starts pouring and in short order we forget what we were worried about. Sorta like when my husband was unemployed, then got a job. A few months ago our lips were starting to stretch real tight over our teeth. Feelin' a little parched and gettin' bug-eyed. He gets a job and next thing you know I'm buying recliners and a new mattress, when I probably ought to be tucking dollar bills under the old one. 

It's so easy to get into debt. We slap that credit card down instead of putting stuff on layaway or paying cash. The card is a deceiver. "I'll think about it tomorra." You walk away with your goodies, without paying. But the extortion is looming. Layaway makes us wait. It's not real fun. Until it is. I remember my Mama picking up all the Christmas gifts at stores where she had been paying for weeks. Then I tried it after I acquired children (it's almost unheard of now)...and what joy to retrieve something that's already paid for. There's a giant sinking feeling when your credit card bill comes in the mail, but there's no happy dance quite like paying cash for things. I'm considering just putting an orange and some pecans in everybody's stockings this year. Wouldn't that be special? I am joking, but the truth is that there's eighteen shopping days left and I've only bought one present. Don't tell my grandkids.