Do I Look Pruny?

I am really getting sick of this drought.

As you may have read, South Florida has pretty much dried up and turned to dust. It's so bad in Palm Beach, they are considering allowing unescorted negroes into the city, as long as they carry bottles of Evian.

Is that funny? I guess that's only funny if you know Palm Beach's history. It wasn't that long ago that Palm Beach was a no-Jews, licensed-negroes-only operation. They got in trouble for trying to issue IDs to non-residents who entered the city to work during the day, because the practical effect was to ban blacks from Palm Beach unless they could prove they washed clothes or mowed yards for old white ladies. As I understand it the reason Boca and West Palm exist is that rich Jews needed a place to go, and Palm Beach wasn't having them. Because you know Jews. With their loud parties and yards full of junk cars.

Anyway, these drought conditions are rough. It has rained continuously for about a week now. I am really tired of the sensation of my clothes sticking to me. I am considering bonding them to my skin permanently with DuPont 5200. That way at least they won't scrape my skin as my movement pulls the sodden fabric across my body.

If this is a drought, what is normal weather like? It must be like waking up in a scene from The Little Mermaid.

I'm incredibly sick of news stories that go like this: "It rained approximately seventeen feet over Steve's house today. But don't expect it to have any effect on the drought. Because it just missed the tiny funnel the rain apparently has to hit in order to get into Lake Okeechobee. Do not wash your car. Do not water your yard. Do not bathe. If you must drink, drink urine. Next week, you'll only be allowed to drink urine every other day. Meanwhile, the forecast calls for...hey, this is refreshing: heavy rain."

I guess I'm ignorant about meteorology, because I had always assumed there was some connection between constant torrential rain and eased drought conditions. But that is apparently not the case. The rain has to fall in just the right place at just the right angle, and you can't have too much all at once, and you can't have too little, and all the drops have to be a certain shape. Like Eric the halibut, they can't be too flat. Or else the aquifer rejects them, and the restrictions continue, and eventually in the paper's food section, you start seeing recipes for urine daiquiris.

Naturally, in my mind, the most catastrophic effect of the drought is the way it affects my trivial hobbies. Yesterday I planted a bell pepper plant in a hanging bucket, and I am extremely concerned about it. I hung it from the end of a rafter at the edge of a roof, which seemed like a nice spot that would get a good mix of shade and sun. But evidently the rain shoots straight off the roof and onto the top of the bucket, and from there it goes into the bucket and drowns the poor plant. If the weather were normal, this would be a brilliant labor-saving scheme. As it is, it's more like sure death for the plant. Instead of watering it, I have to go out there three times a day and tip the bucket so the water pours onto the patio and splashes all over me.

Also, the mosquitoes are having a banquet, and I am the main course. Generally, mosquitoes can't stand the way I taste, which is amazing, considering how much bacon I eat. But for some reason they find my feet and ankles irresistible. And I refuse to wear shoes, except to depositions and funerals. So I'm having problems. Yesterday I realized I had no bug repellant, so I ran and got the next best thing. Dried basil, from the kitchen. Mosquitoes hate basil. I rubbed it on my ankles and went back to work on my plants. Then later I forgot it was there, and I went to pick up a pizza. I'm not sure what the pizza punks thought. It's probably not every day they look across the counter and see a fat man with basil all over his ankles, wearing a shirt that says "Proud Member of the Miami Mafia." Perhaps they thought it was some kind of mob ritual.

Today the forecast puts the chance of rain at 60%. And this is an improvement. Wow, things are really looking up. I think I'll buy a camel.

Here's a nutty thought. How about limiting new construction, instead of cramming as many people as possible into the state and telling them they can't wash their cars? No, that would be insane. The Latin Builders Association would form an armed militia and storm the capitol. God forbid we shouldn't be allowed to throw up a thousand flimsy tract houses a day, out where the tomato fields used to be. Urban planning is for communists, amigos. Progress means dirty cars and clogged streets and living on top of each other like ants in a mound. I think if they ever build that Mexican border fence, they ought to send the surplus to north Florida and fence off Georgia and Alabama and shoot people as they climb over it on their way to Dade County. We already have worse traffic than Los Angeles. Isn't that a sign that maybe we've built enough houses? Where exactly is the new water supposed to come from? We can only pee so much.

We have nowhere to go. That's the problem. On two sides, we have ocean. On a third, the bug-infested, stinking, steaming, monotonous, Holy Inviolable Everglades. So the only way to go is up. And there is no place to put new streets. So in five years this place is going to look like Hong Kong. Like the market scenes from Soylent Green. Boy, southern Texas is starting to look good. It would be so great to live in a place where you can get in the car and drive a quarter of a mile without stopping.

Please God, kill the housing bubble. Knock the prices down by about 75%. Slow down the construction. Is that so much to ask? Let's put this all in perspective and admit that all that really matters is my convenience.

That poor pepper plant. I should have planted kelp.