I’m Fixing to be Shed of These Old Winter-Time Blues

I’m fixing to be shed of these old winter-time blues.

All those short, cold and dreary days are fixing to be gone. Those rainy days and Mondays that got you down are fixing to be washed away with warm spring rains and gentle breezes.

I knew the days of shivering while the car warmed up, or when the power went off were just a thing of the past. You know how I could tell? It was the signs.

The first sign that Old Man Winter was being melted and swept away was when I walked outside and the snow had turned yellow. Actually it was billowing clouds of pollen covering my truck, my driveway, and the whole outside world.

Ah, spring is here, I sighed deeply. That was my undoing, that deep sigh, as I inhaled all those nasty little particles. It took about two days before my eyes got swollen and my nose got stuffy and my throat got scratchy.

I had an opportunity to look at some pollen particles under a microscope once, and some of them are actually beautiful and colorful in appearance, but don’t let that fool you—so is a coral snake.

The ones from ragweed were a lovely shade of white and looked like sweet gum tree balls, round with sharp little spikes. You get a bunch of them up your snoot and they’ll make you wish it was once more frigid with crystal clear air.

My head felt like an overripe watermelon, so off to the drug store I went and began to browse through the dozens of medications that claim to cure you of the yellow curse. Some of them were quite expensive too, but I diverted some funds from another budget in order to make the purchase, kind of like robbing Peter to pay Pollen.

Thank goodness the rains came and I just knew it would all be washed away, but it wasn’t enough, because when I went outside the first thing I did was step into a yellow puddle.

But being a person who always attempts to look at the bright side, to see the positive points, to look for the silver lining, I found that I could write my grocery list on the door of my car and not have to worry about losing it, and I could draw the kids a hop scotch court in the driveway without using any chalk.

A few more weeks and a few more thunder showers and the yellow scourge will be gone, the plants and trees will have had their revenge on we humans, and we can be fixing to look forward to the next sign of improving weather.