Historical September 1988 satirical column by Tom Hoerr. Its comic theories about microwaves, nuclear advocates and summer heat are satire, not scientific explanations or instructions.
This has been an unbearable summer, “temperature-wise,” as they’d say in the Pentagon. We’ve set records or come close enough to score in horseshoes for days over 90 degrees, nights above 80 degrees, and the “sweat factor” (temperature plus humidity, divided by wind speed, times cans of beer consumed).
My cats do nothing but lay on the back porch, my car overheats, my shirt gets sweaty hanging in the closet, and the lines at Baskin-Robbins get longer and longer.
My wife is depressed over the heat and buys shoes to raise her spirits. “Why,” you may ask, “is all this happening to us?” It just isn’t fair. We’ve finally eliminated smallpox around the world, we’ve almost developed static-free cordless phones, and now, when everything is finally falling into place, the temperature starts going crazy on us. I keep reading about the “Greenhouse Effect” and how we’re heating up our atmosphere through using too many fossil fuels. Every time I turn on the television, some plasticman is talking about the lack of—or is it surplus of?—carbon dioxide and the ozone problem.
Oh, they can talk all of the scientific jargon that they want, they can throw all of their pseudo explanations around, but I know why it’s so damn hot, and it’s got nothing to do with fossils, ozones, or greenhouses. You see, I just watched “The China Syndrome” on cable, and I think the whole thing is a conspiracy.
My first hunch is that our record-breaking temperatures are the result of a plot by the Nuclear Energy supporters. Remember those wonderful folks who gave us Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, and the movie about Mickey Roonie surviving a 1950s Abomb test? Those people who glow, literally glow, about the potential of atomic energy; yep, they’re behind all of this.
I know, I know. You’re thinking, “this seems pretty far-fetched.” But, wait! Is this any more outlandish, I ask you, than Danny Quayle’s vice-presidential candidacy, Jack Clark signing with the Yankees, or yuppies buying fancy condominiums in Nina Place?
If you refuse to believe that this kind of conspiracy can take place, you probably also refuse to accept that Elvis still lives. (I used to think that Elvis had died, but I called this telephone number that was advertised on cable last week and heard a recording of him speaking sometime last year.
It was 90¢ per minute, so I didn’t stay on the line for long, but it was the King, all right! You do know that his middle name, Aaron, is misspelled on his tombstone, don’t you?
If that’s not a giveaway that something’s up, I don’t know what is.) Back to our Dante’s Level six-like temperatures: My number one theory is that the nuclear power advocates got together and decided to do something so that their position would look pretty good. It’s tough to make dinosaurs that have been dead for 50 million years into bad guys, but it looks like they’ve succeeded.
If we can’t burn wood, oil, or coal, that doesn’t leave many options other than books, and there just aren’t that many copies of For the Record by Don Regan.
The Callaway Nuclear Plant may get to wear a white hat after all.
Now don’t you wish you’d kept your Union Electric stock? I’m not sure how they did it, raised the temperature, that is, but it can’t be that hard to do. Perhaps they simply placed a few spies in the air-conditioner factories of the world.
All it would take is a few minor adjustments on the thermostats and thermometers, so it would read 78 degrees when it was really 86 degrees. We’d all think we were cool, but…Multiply that 8 degree difference times 1,000,000 or so window units and you get a big difference in temperature.
It should also not go unrecognized that there are two major political conventions this summer and that the Board of Freeholders has been meeting for months now; talk about your hot-air generators. Being a reasonable sort, however, I recognize that it’s possible (although not probable!) that the nuclear power advocates really aren’t behind the heating of our globe.
In that case, there must be some other explanation, right?
After a good deal of pondering, a chilled Bud Light or two, some M&Ms, and a semifine cigar, I have another alternative. It’s not as logical as my number one theory, mind you, but, what the heck, this is a freebie newspaper, right?
In the interests of science and journalistic integrity, here goes: I believe that the hotterthan-average temperatures are the result of microwave cooking. There, now that it’s out, I bet you agree with me. Haven’t you always suspected that microwaves were basically voodoo and that we’d all pay a price someday for tampering with nature? You see, I don’t understand how a microwave works.
I know that if you place a burned-out lightbulb in the microwave and turn it on low power, the bulb will glow (honest!); I know that you can put in food which gets hot on plates which stay at room temperature; I know that the middle of my Lean Cuisine is always frozen while the edges are brown and burned and rubbery (“popsicle lasagna,” I call it). I figure that this all has something to do with the invisible bubbles in the air. They’re called molecules or something like that.
My hunch is that the microwave makes this noise which makes the bubbles go crazy— kind of like preadolescent youngsters at a rock concert—and as they move around they get more frenzied and agitated, heating up stuff that has other little bubbles in it; the bubbles, not the youngsters. (I hope that this explanation isn’t too technical for you nonscientists.) Anyway, here’s the catch: What happens to all of those crazed air bubbles when the microwave door opens? Gotcha! You don’t think that the noise—beeeeeeeepppppppppmeans that the microwave cooking is over, do you?
Not for a New York minute.
When you open your door, it’s kind of like visitors’ day at the Texas-Mexican border, all kinds of bubbles stream across the boundary, never to return.
These crazed microwave bubbles are now in the air, in the environment (I do love using those fancy scientific terms!), moving around looking for autographs. (Oops, sorry, I was back at the rock concert.) Let me try again: These crazed microwave bubbles are now in the air, in the environment (I still do love using those fancy scientific terms!), looking for things to heat.
They can’t do your Budget Gourmet, popcorn, or leftover coffee, so they wander off into the outside where they join with other microwave bubbles, looking for something to heat. You’ve got it, when they get a large enough group, they form a union, heat the air, and then we have the Greenhouse Effect. I warned you that theory number two isn’t as logical as my nuclear-advocate conspiracy theory, but when you start counting the number of microwaves around, it begins to make more and more sense. I mean, no Eskimos own microwaves and look how cold it is where they live. I bet if you explore around the equator, you’ll find lots of microwaves hidden beneath the sand and paper-mache souvenir puppets.
Now that we know why it’s so hot—nuclear advocates and microwaves—the question is “What do we do about it?” Simple: I propose that we pick a date and make it Earth Picnic Day.
Everyone in the whole world would go outside for a picnic and, here’s the beauty, people could only wear short sleeve shirts, sandals, and the like.
No one could wear long pants or take a sweater or coat. What would happen? Right, a massive cold wave would come in from somewhere, ruining everyone’s picnic, and our sweltering suffering searing summer suddenly stops. We’ve got nothing to lose.
After all, even if this doesn’t work, there’s a lot to be said for all of us picnicking together.
No war, togetherness, and, BOY, am I glad that I just sold my UE shares and bought frisbee stock! NEXT MONTH: 101 recipes to make your hair grow faster.
Originally published in The Times of Skinker-DeBaliviere, September 1988.
Read this article in the original newspaper issue.
Original source: SD_Times1988_09.pdf, printed page(s) 8; PDF page(s) 8.
