Swelter

[rejectomorph]

There is an insane woodpecker in the neighborhood. This morning I heard an odd, metallic rattling a couple of times. A short while later, when I was outdoors, I heard it again, and I saw that a woodpecker was standing on top of a mailbox up the street, drilling at it. Did the bird have a beef with the postal service? I don't know, but the drilling continued off and on for several minutes. Finally the woodpecker gave up. I have no idea why it tried to drill into a metal mailbox. Maybe the box was painted with something that smells like woodpecker food, or maybe it was just a crazy woodpecker.

I'm experiencing seasonal whiplash. Going from cool, rainy weather to hot, dry, summery weather in less than a week is not pleasant. The only good thing about this sudden onset of premature summer is that the long-delayed iced tea season is here at last. Unfortunately, the black cherry juice I use as one of the flavorings in my favorite tea concoction has sat on the shelf too long and become bitter. It will have to be replaced. Until then, I am drinking a substandard version of my favorite hot weather beverage. Still, it's a nice change from ordinary hot tea.

The mosquitoes are so numerous now, and I have been bitten so many times, that I expect to contract West Nile Virus momentarily, if I haven't done so already. I'm quite sure that I'll be dead within the week. I'd have a better chance of survival if the stupid woodpeckers would eat mosquitoes instead of mailboxes.

Comments

[rejectomorph]

So essentially, this is a very clever woodpecker (having discovered that metal makes a lot more noise than wood), but one who is not particularly attractive to females ( or else he would have gotten laid before being driven to the extreme measure of pounding his beak on a piece of steel.) Sounds to me like the old story of the brainy geek being ignored by the hot babes, and then making a spectacle of himself to get their attention. If, a few years hence, there are a lot of woodpeckers hammering at mailboxes, we'll know he was successful. I'm not expecting it to work out for him, though. Natural selection is harsh.