Chinook
by George M Hosier II  - July 7

Duck Weather

I sure appreciate the fact that we aren’t snorting forest fire smoke this summer. After breakup, I was the stereotype of your ordinary middle-aged Alaskan guy praying that the fire season wouldn’t limit my recreational options. I was looking forward to lots of camping and fishing and swimming and loafing, so when I saw that we were ramping up for a moderate summer, I was ecstatic.

I should explain that I never have been one to enjoy heat. I guess that’s why I like Alaska so much. When I talk to people who are raving about the vacation they took in some exotic locale with an ambient temperature of a blast furnace, my eyes roll back in my head and I begin to convulse at the mere thought. For the life of me, I cannot fathom the alleged bliss of slowly broiling on a tiny strip of white sand sprinkled between the toes of a looming glass and steel luxury hotel complex.

Why would a person of sound mind volunteer to remove most of their clothes and squeeze themselves shoulder to shoulder into a carpet of peeling, lotion-saturated pink bodies? What sane person would want to take a “romantic” midnight stroll through surf that deposits a boxcar load of used drug paraphernalia and discarded medical waste at his feet each time it slaps the beach? But most puzzling of all, why would someone want to spend their entire vacation sticky and sweating like a twenty-five year old stick of dynamite?

Since I don’t appreciate heat in Florida or the Bahamas, I appreciate it even less in Alaska. That is particularly true since enduring the heat here also involves inhaling spruce tree ashes, sparks, and small scraps of flaming birch bark. Needless to say, the mild weather had me grinning. I began to inventory my fishing gear, making delighted little chortling noises in the back of my throat.

I had only gotten started when my wife appeared, dragging a large crate. My first instinct was that maybe she had broken down and bought me the personal watercraft for which I had been begging her to let me mortgage the house. I threw my arms around her neck and delivered a big sloppy kiss. She recoiled and suggested that I open the crate first, and then if I was still in the kissing mood she would buy me a personal watercraft.

That didn’t sound promising. Tentatively, I lifted the lid to reveal a massive ream of paper entitled “Jobs that need done around our house this summer, if you wish to remain happily married, and to continue to wear clean clothes and consume hot meals.” Being the dutiful, hard working, loving husband that I am, I threw my arms around her neck again. In typical womanly fashion, she misconstrued my gesture of affection and pried my fingers from her windpipe, accusing me of trying to strangle her.

At precisely that moment there was a sound like a gigantic sheet ripping, followed by a crack that shook the house. Then suddenly it seemed like someone emptied the Yukon River onto our roof. It never stopped raining for a month!

When that first cloudburst cut loose, I made a great show of racing to the door to check out the freak weather. It is with elaborate protestations of regret that I report somehow getting tangled up in the box containing my wife’s summer job list and kicking a field goal with it far out into the torrential downpour. I feel devastated that I was unable to prevent it from becoming reduced to a pile of shapeless illegible pulp before my wife could fight her way past me to salvage it. Clumsy, clumsy me!

Admittedly, I felt a sense of relief that I would not be wasting my entire summer on ridiculously pointless projects such as repairing the porch. What I hadn’t been able to get my wife to understand is that if you jump over the first three boards and then hug the wall as you carefully stretch your hand toward the doorknob until you can grasp it firmly, it is virtually impossible to fall through the little hole in our porch. My wife claims the UPS man disappeared in it the other day, but I have lain on my belly and probed the void with my spotlight and have seen no trace of him down there.

The obliteration of the list had rendered it moot. Furthermore, everyone knows you can’t do outdoor chores in the rain, so as much as it broke my heart, I resigned myself to postponing the summer jobs for a few weeks. I basked in the thought until I realized that the rain was also going to put a severe cramp in my fishing and camping schedule.

The incessant rain soon began to wear heavily on my household. I, at least was able to escape to the office on weekdays, but the other members of my family gradually went stir crazy. My son sat around in his pajamas poking things with a shish kebab skewer and complaining about being bored. The dog pestered me to go out every 20 minutes or so, and then when I obliged her, would promptly make a beeline for the muddiest puddle she could find and drag me through it in my fuzzy slippers. Worst of all, my wife turned out to have a photographic memory of the summer job list she had drafted.

In no time flat, she had recreated it. Upon analysis she chirped brightly that a good 65 percent of its jobs were indoor jobs. Brother! I found myself passing the tedious hours by rearranging the attic, installing a kitchen ceiling; fixing the leaky shower head, painting the pantry, and culling my six foot stack of back issues of Guns and Ammo.

That last job was by far the most painful. How can a guy possibly choose which issue to throw away? My wife thinks that once you read a magazine it should go in the trash. I on the other hand appreciate fine literature in any form, but especially when it is accompanied by glossy photos of big macho-looking shooting devices bristling with accessories. Not only that, but that pile represented valuable and irreplaceable research resources.

One never knows when one is going to need to look up how to replace the mag follower on a Makarov or find the telephone number for an obscure distributor of 10-22 match barrels. To my practical mind the magazines were important files. My wife, however has a near zero tolerance for such research tools, referring to them callously as “clutter”.

A lively discussion ensued which sent the dog scurrying under the bed and had the cats hissing at us. I expressed myself eloquently and candidly, defending my case with such brilliance that my wife allowed me to keep a total of one back issue as long as I promised to hang it from the little wire in the outhouse. It was a small triumph. I rarely make out so well in such arguments.

As the rainy days dragged on, I began to grow at peace with the weather. A certain serenity stole into my being, until the rain on my steel roof began to sound almost musical. I noticed other changes too: outward, more obvious changes. Webs began growing between my toes. A hard, orange, bony ridge began to form where my mouth and nose had been. My skin began to grow feathery and to whiten. I started wearing a little blue sailor shirt and hat and absolutely nothing else. I also developed an addiction to pond scum and sardine sandwiches.

Most recently, my voice has become squawky and monosyllabic. I often find myself standing on tiptoe and flapping my arms vigorously. Then I settle back with a contented little wag of my tail and begin grooming the feather-like skin growths on my arms with my bill. I fall asleep most of the time with my head tucked under my right arm.

My Uncle Wilbur used to say “If it looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, and swims like a duck, shoot it for dinner.” I used to think that was a pithy and humorous truism. I now find it offensive—racist even. How would he like it if I said, “If it’s bald and wears ridiculous gaudy ties and bifocals, shoot it for dinner”?

My wife seems to be quite startled by the change in my appearance and habits. That’s ok. If she would just look in the mirror, she would notice that I’m not the only one who is evolving. Her eyes are beginning to bulge. Her hair and ears are shrinking drastically. Her skin is developing an overlapping scale pattern. Her fingers are fusing as her arm shortens dramatically, and a series of red lacy slits are forming just behind where her ears used to be. In a word, she looks absolutely delicious.

Oh, yeah! One last thing. The most surprising change that I’m noticing about myself is that I am actually beginning to dream about vacationing in a hot climate. In fact, come fall, I might just fly to Mexico. Boy, are my arms going to get tired!
 

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