ORIGINALLY WRITTEN DAVID VOGEL
I recently found myself in a situation where I had a lot of time to sit quietly by myself and think. Being the concerned citizen that I am, I decided to use my newly discovered free time to ponder something that might make an impact in the world, something that could possibly make some sort of difference in our society.
So I decided that-why not?-I would ponder the issue of global warming.
This is what I decided: Global warming is not working.
I came to this conclusion because the setting of my meditative, self-searching session was in my car, which was hopelessly stuck in ice less than half a block away from my house. This occurred during the icy, two-week winter blast in January.
To come to this deduction, I used a theory called the “transitive property.” The transitive property is something that I picked up in geometry class last year.
The rule works something like this: Bobby eats paste. The paste is stored in the back closet. Therefore, after a few years of paste-consumption, Bobby’s bowels will clog up like a sausage-making machine trying to process a completely intact water buffalo.
Of course, I am just kidding. (Not about Bobby’s bowels.) The final sentence should read, “Therefore, Bobby is in the back closet.”
I used this same kind of reasoning method for my situation, only I drew it out longer. Here it is, the completely unabridged version of why the whole global warming issue is a bunch of (insert your own joke here).
Global warming makes the earth get hotter. The earth getting hotter would make the temperature go up. The temperature going up would cause ice to melt. Melting ice turns into water. Water is a chemical bond between two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom. Chemical bonding occurs because of an exchange of electrons. Electrons are little negatively charged dots with minus signs written on them. These little dots with minus signs appear in science books. Science books generally also cover topics such as friction. Friction can be created between one moving object and one stationary object, causing traction. If there is a lack of traction, it could be because the stationary object is ice. There was ice on the road. Also on the road was my car, which was stuck on the ice. If there was ice, that means that the temperature was very cold. If it was very cold, then the earth is not getting hotter. Therefore, I just managed to use over 150 words for no apparent reason other than to boost word count.
Needless to say, I was just a little more than perturbed about the fact that my car was about as mobile as a fully-grown redwood tree.
What really got my goat-which means, because I didn’t have any goats to begin with, I’m not even breaking even in my goat population-was that I was being as careful as I could.
As I said before, it was less than half a block from my own driveway that I found myself completely motionless. I didn’t even have time to get going very fast.
All I know is, I started applying the breaks plenty early. However, I kept going-and going and going-until my front tires crunched into the large chunks of ice piled at the edge of the intersection.
I drive a Camaro, which is a very attractive car, but has about the same level of winter-driving capabilities as a naked mole rat has fur.
Having the enthusiastic, go-get-it attitude that I do, I spent several minutes trying to get myself out. I flipped it into reverse and pushed down on the accelerator. Then I switched back into drive. And then overdrive.
Becoming desperate, I then started lunging back and forth in my seat, trying to get any kind of movement from my tires.
It was then that I finally admitted to myself that I needed help. Over the next few minutes, several cars drove by. I would signal at them in huge gestures, indicating that if I had an SOS flag, I would be flying it.
This being a small, considerate community, everyone waved back cheerfully and kept going along their way.
I finally called my dad and began the phone conversation with, “You wanna hear a funny story?”
Thankfully, I was finally liberated, with the help of my father, brother and another good Samaritan who pulled up behind me and realized that I was in distress, because there are not many teenagers in sport cars who come to a complete halt at a yield sign.
And even though I may have exaggerated my story a little, I am not exaggerating when I say this was only one of an estimated eight times I managed to get my Chevrolet-butt stuck in the ice and snow.
One of these times, and I am not kidding, occurred with the back half of my car sticking out into a reasonably busy road in Wichita.
So right now, as bad as everyone makes it out to be, I’m thinking that global warming wouldn’t be such a tragic thing. As far as I’m concerned, we can keep destroying the ozone layer until I get a vehicle with better traction.
And while I’m out car shopping, maybe I’ll look into getting myself a couple goats.
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UFO: Chionophobia is the fear or dislike of snow.
Don’t ask why.