The Summer of our Lives

Despite earlier tabloid claims that this would be the worst summer of our lives, things seem to be shaping up pretty nicely.
	We anticipated storms of biblical proportions, thanks in no small part to Nostradamus, who, if you haven't been keeping up with this guy, still seems to be predicting things without the benefit of being alive since 1566. Oh, a portion of the credit has to go to Saddam Hussein who is personally responsible for screwing up the global climate by personally setting oil fields all over the Middle East on fire; the Communists for grand scale nuclear testing which has tilted the earth's axis causing the polar ice caps to melt so that in our lifetime we'll be able to actually surf to Denver; a large hamburger chain that has depleted the rain forests for the raw materials necessary to festively package our between meal snacks; and everybody who has ever used an aerosol can for any reason ever.
What do you do while you're waiting in line at the checkout counter?
	In spite of all of these, it's shaping up to be a glorious summer.
The mosquito truck came through last night, which provided one of the most inspiring sights we've experienced so far this summer. It was a beautiful scene, with children running behind, shouting and laughing and doing cartwheels to welcome its arrival, excitedly sniffing the billowing clouds of toxic smoke; little old ladies standing on their front porches crying and waving their handkerchiefs, and the men all standing silently at attention and offering a silent prayer of thanksgiving for this respite from the worst mosquito plague of our lives.
	And experts tell us that we're now well into the second wave of mosquitoes for the summer. That means those who so royally feasted on us at the beginning of the summer have long since gone on to greener pastures (or juicier humans, if we correctly understand our entomological theology), and their offspring have replaced them. No surprise, we know, as this is the natural order of life. However, the offspring are the size of eagles and have roughly the same appetite as velociraptors after three weeks on Jenny Craig.
The ding ding man's back hawking frozen treats from the side of his slow-moving menace to both the traffic and the mothers who have but a few dollars left 'til Friday in their pocketbooks dropped hastily by the door. Cries of "But you'll spoil your dinner!" don't even begin to deter the pleading and whining for the price of a frozen piece of heaven, which, if you have more than two kids, rivals the cost of a subscription to TV Guide, and half of which will inevitably break and drop to the sidewalk where it will melt and attract ants and bees from as far away as Somalia.
	It's a glorious summer.
Everyone walks around, their chests puffed up with pride like never before since our hometown basketball team became the greatest in the history of the game, and in homage we buy team member's endorsed athletic footwear, the price of which rivals the cost of our first cars. Soon, out of sheer hero-worship, we will allow our sons to dress in leather jockstraps and feather boas and glittery eye shadow so that they look like a high fever hallucination of Ricky Ricardo in his Copacabana conga drummer finest preparing to be the grand marshal of the gay and lesbian Mardi Gras parade.
	A glorious summer indeed.
We made our first actual trip of the summer to the public swimming pool last week and noted with distinct melancholia that the pretty girls are getting younger every year, except, of course, for our wife, we swear to God, who is not only getting prettier but younger and slimmer at the very same time, and we're not talking every year -- we mean every day.
	Getting to the pool was no small feat, either, since most of the streets, roads and bridges in northern Illinois seem to be under some form of construction. What was once a five minute trip to the convenience store has become a lesson in geography, and we're convinced that portions of the city have been completely cut off from the rest of the world. Won't we be surprised this winter when the streets are reopened and we learn that certain parts of town have re-incorporated with their own languages, customs, and nationalities, and that they've now got a mailing address of Naperville?
Yes, it is a glorious summer. Perhaps the best of our lives.