Once again the Pacific Northwest is in the news. 

When your area is in the news, it’s rarely for a good reason.  You will probably never hear “In the Pacific Northwest, God’s Little Eden, everyone who played won the lottery, the sick have been healed, the blind can see, the lame can walk and every resident has discovered the ability to place a coffee order in less than half an hour.”

No, it’s always something like a pregnant man or hail in June or some other bad weather.  As in, our area is currently in a record heat wave.

That wouldn’t be so bad but in our region, 85% of the residents do not have air conditioning.  It only took one summer in Central Oregon before I gently grabbed Beloved Spouse by the throat and whispered, “If we don’t get air conditioning in this house, someone is going to die.”

We were ridiculed because everyone knows it doesn’t get hot in Oregon.  “Just open the window” our neighbors jeered.  We were written off as crazy Californians who didn’t appreciate the wonderful out-of-doors.

You know my position on sweating: I’m against it.  On the seventh day, God said, “Whoa, it’s hot!” and created the first BTU, whatever that is.  But even I, a person who begins to wilt when it hits the upper 70s, would be able to go outside were it not for the mosquitoes. 

In Central Oregon, we are under attack from massive armadas of mosquitoes.  Five years ago, we had an exceptionally wet winter and the mosquitoes got jiggy with it and after hours of watching the Playboy Channel, started begetting all over the place.  But, all was still good for the next five years because we had average winters.

Until this year.

This year, the snow was a little late in coming so ski and board shops started advertising for the locals to “do a snow dance” and we did.  And how.  And apparently, God was not pleased with out snow dance as He was counting on us doing The Time Warp.  So, in His infinite wisdom said, “You want snow?  You got snow!” And WHOMPH, we got snow.  And how.

So when this record heat wave hit, the snow melted.  This raised the river levels which activated the mosquito eggs that were laid five years ago.

Just in case you didn’t read that carefully, let me repeat it.  The mosquito eggs laid dormant for five years.  Jesus was in the tomb only three days.  Well, when anything can outdie Jesus, I say, we got a problem.

Zombie Bugs.

If Zombie Bugs aren’t a sign of the apocalypse, they should be. 

There have been other signs.  I believe it all started with the Digital TV Transition.  Think about it: since the DTV switch, the world has gone mad. 

The economy remains in the toilet, Michael Jackson was carried out in a gold casket, Billy Mays died, the San Diego Padres won all of ten games and some people are openly speculating that our duly elected President, Barack Obama, is an alien and should be deported to his home planet of Zortog.

It’s not like we haven’t had alien Presidents before.  Ronald Reagan’s hair was fluffed up to hide his antenna and Lyndon B. Johnson didn’t wear that cowboy hat just as a fashion statement. Gerald Ford never could get the hang of this planet’s gravity.

But I think I read about all this wailing and gnashing of teeth in one of the lost Psalms. 

“When the TV is on the blinky

And the economy is in the sinky

The Gloved One lies in a golden Twinkie

Then things will become rather stinky

Beware of the Zombie Bugs.”

There are few options in dealing with Zombie Bugs.  I think we can all agree it would be far too time consuming to drive itty bitty silver daggers through each and every tiny little heart.  So, the best alternative is, you guessed it: snow.

The first night we get overnight low temperatures below 32 degrees, virtually every resident of Central Oregon makes it a point to get outside as early as possible in the morning just so we can hear the summer bugs die.  Their screams of agony are music to our collective ears and we smile a lot that day. 

Therefore, we have no choice but to do our snow dance.  However, given last year’s results, I suggest this year we go with some form of hula.  And given the swarming Zombie Bugs, it should include a lot of slapping.