Life on the Gulf Coast (humor)

[cobalt1999]

This is an oldie from 2005, but starting to feel relevant again...

Life on the Gulf Coast

You know, the wind blows around this general area an average of 80-150mph per day over the last couple of years. Aliens in faraway galaxies have been known to look through their powerful telescopes and confuse Jupiter with Earth lately. That big constant storm is always brewing in the same place on both planets. But people in this area have done a great job of getting adjusted to it (I guess the Jupiter people couldn’t handle it). We actually build new homes as the old ones next door blow away. That’s just raw material for the subdivision up the road, which is blowing apart. Most have learned to keep their footing while out for a walk wearing really heavy lead boots as a fashion statement. Some things have changed however. We now call walking the dog “flying a fur kite”.

Each home along the gulf coast now has its own “shingle dude”. He lives on and is physically tethered to the roof. He nails down new shingles as the old ones blow off. The Wal-Marts no longer have little bank branches up front. They have been replaced by FEMA withdrawal locations. In fact, I’m the only person in the area who hasn’t figured out how to qualify for unlimited new electronic stuff for my living room. Everyone else has a personal Best Buy conveyer belt that tracks to his home. No UPS needed. As the old wide-screen floats away in the continuous flood, the new, bigger one arrives from Best Buy.

Driving is still tough though. The cars are still made by big corporations who aren’t hurricane sensitive or caring toward the “wind challenged”. The cars still get blown all over the roads on the way to and from handouts. But we are widening the roads to allow for this “drift”. And we are lobbying for floating car-boats. Gas prices haven’t caught up to national levels around here. First, those little plastic numbers on the street side gas signs blow away as soon as they are put up. Second, there actually isn’t any gas to buy. The people who have gas have hijacked Sunoco Tanker trucks from Texas and stashed them in their back yards. That stuff is free if you know the password and handshake…and have a young expendable good-looking daughter. But you can only kidnap so many teen girls before the police swim up to you and gargle questions. Another good thing…few fingerprints here.

Many folks had trouble adapting to the new food limitations of living in this area. Outside the lucky washed up live fish in the living room to tackle, there really is only canned sardines, Hormel Chili and Spaghettios combined with Coleman propane heat. Sometimes you can get decent Mexican if the storm goes thru the Yucatan first. I once thought those Japanese who spend millions to have icebergs shipped to them were wasteful. Not anymore. We literally lost the recipe for ice. Now, it’s extra to have bottled water poured in cellophane with rubber bands to hold it in…and dropped in your drink to pretend it’s cooler. And the drink is usually a warm 1975 Pabst found scattered around at the closed down and blown down old distributor.

Sanitation without running water isn’t all that bad. The tides take most stuff away from the toilets each day. I wake up each day and all the waste is gone. Replacing the toilet and the rest of the bathroom every day sucks, but you get used to it. It’s like normal people having to put the TP on the dispenser. Just as painful. It does suck getting into the constant fight with the significant other about how to hang the new bathtub each day. Over or under? It never ends.

The zip lock bags containing everything you own are cool once you get the hang of them. I can now open my wallet and show my ID and Social Security card without unlocking the bag. You learn to plan a sneeze. You don’t just sneeze. You open the zip lock first, get the tissue, close it till you see blue, then you sneeze. It’s good to anchor most zip locks near the location you expect to find them. They tend to float around as the surges come in.

New homes don’t have outlets. The have battery storage areas. When the flashlight flickers, I look for the nearest wall. The rule is “D” size on the room’s north wall, “C” on the west wall, “AA” to the south and “AAA” to the east. 9-volt? You are screwed. Don’t bring that crap around here! The big 12v hang where light fixtures used to be.

Beaches are still big and fun here. We just have to call the local surf shop each day to see where the waves are breaking to determine where the beach is. A manual cutting tool is a must if you want to go to the beach. Yesterday, the beach was a heavily forested inland location. To lay out and get some sun, you have to cut down a few dozen trees on the high ground or move debris and wait for the daily eye to pass over. Beach towels are out as they can’t be tackled to the ground and have carried some small kids to Haiti like a magic carpet. Most people bring hinged concrete slabs on dollies to lie on. Each is airbrushed with tropical motifs. Frisbees have been banned here though. After the decapitation epidemic something had to be done.

Spark plugs are a woman’s best friend. The ever-changing guy next door (was next door last week but now his house is in South Alabama…and he hasn’t rented a truck to move) had his generator spark plug foul. He’d already given his wife’s rings for the last spark plug. Not able to acquire a new one on the hurricane market, his wife left him and swam back here. She knows I have a few extra stashed. It’s a good thing. Depending on the next storm, I’ll probably trade her for 10 gallons of Sunoco gas next week.

[cobalt1999]

1. ...for the morning crowd.