ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, June 24, 1996 TAG: 9606240013
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-7 EDITION: METRO
COLUMN: Monty S. Leitch
SOURCE: MONTY S. LEITCH
YOU KNOW when the next tropical depression is going to hit, don't you? It's going to hit the week of your vacation. The very week you've been planning for, saving for, looking forward to through months and months of dreary days and nights: This will be a week of torrential rains, astonishing winds, flood warnings and gnashing of teeth.
Likely, this will be the week that the transmission in your car gives out, too. You'll be pulling out of the Food Lion in Corolla, and you'll hear this odd little "tick, tick, tick" in the engine, and mere hours later the service manager at the Outer Banks dealership will look at you and shake his head. "Well," he'll drawl, "I've got good news and bad news." The good news will be that he accepts Mastercard.
That emergency evacuation orders for the coast have been rescinded.
That, fortunately, his brother-in-law still has a couple of rooms available for the weekend, although they are in an oceanfront, luxury condominium.
The bad news will be ... oh, you know what the bad news will be.
But you'll take the oceanfront, luxury condominium anyway (after all, the brother-in-law accepts your Mastercard, too), and you'll take the service manager's assurances that this is the best price you can expect to receive for such massive repairs, really; you'll take them, because you'll be so relieved to have a place to lay your aching head at last ... aching because you've got the worst summer cold you've had in years, and nothing makes clogged sinuses throb like a tropical depression surrounding a lapsed transmission.
Or, let's say that this year you've chosen a mountain vacation instead. You know when the next tropical depression will hit, don't you? Same rains. Same wind. Flash-flood warnings and mudslides, though, instead of coastal evacuations. Poison ivy, chiggers, showers shared with strangers, and clogged toilets.
And the old-timer shaking his head at you will be saying, "I tell you what, I've never seen the 'skeeters as bad as they are this year. This particular week is pretty bad every year, for sure. But like this? I've never even heard tell of the 'skeeters being like this." Then he'll start talking about the bears. About how they always seem worse around here in 'skeeter season.
Add to that, the worst summer cold you've had in years ...
Fortunately for you, the good news will be that this old-timer's sister-in-law will just have opened a bed-and-breakfast down the road - "Air conditioned and everything," he'll say with pride - and she'll just have gotten all her connections set up to accept Mastercard. "Mint juleps on the veranda," he'll say. "Pancakes in the morning. Do you a world of good. Looks to me like that head of yours must hurt something fierce. I never saw anyone quite so chewed up by 'skeeters."
So you know what you'll do, don't you? You'll max out your card. You'll lay yourself back on the mercy of strangers and learn to like mint juleps. You'll start telling yourself, over and over, "Someday this will make a good story. Someday this will make a good story. Someday ... "
Monty S. Leitch is a Roanoke Times columnist.
LENGTH: Medium: 61 linesby CNB