WHAT WOULD WE do without Flannel? I was out and about with the wife this morning. We had some errands to do and instead of taking both trucks into town we took mine. I was sitting outside of Ma and Pa’s Grocery waiting. I had the truck running and the heater on high, seat was also on high and the vents on the dash were blowing hot air directly into my face with a Beach Boys CD in the player. Some ice pellets were ticking off the windshield and as I watched the thermometer on the rear view mirror dropped another degree. I think we are in for a change of weather as the ice pellets started to turn into snow flakes and were melting on the hood of the Tahoe.

I was debating on going into my stash and lighting up a cigar but I figure I would hold off. I did notice a lot of people on Main Street, shopping. Flashing lights in windows and various Christmas scenes painted on store front windows. I also noticed flannel just about everywhere. Had not really noticed it before until I started looking for someone who was not wearing flannel. Then I started counting, flannel was number one and number two was flannel over a hoodie, number three was a brown work coat and number four was some kind of Christmas sweater. Baseball caps were also a common sight and still a few orange caps were on heads. Did not see much skin though. I think we are done seeing a ladies naked ankle for several months. Of course this is just the menfolk the ladies have a uniform all of their own. Ski jackets with those stretch pants and hair harden into helmets from to much hairspray.

Wind was still blowing and from time to time a gust would shake the Tahoe some. The falling snow would swirl and roll down the street because it was not snowing hard it was just snowing enough. The wife came out of Ma and Pa’s chatting with Dorothy and she opened the door and held it open as she continued to talk. The door was deflecting the cold air into the Tahoe and my hot air was leaving me. I finally had to speak up and told her to stop heating Main Street and she made her third good-bye to Dorothy and got in and pulled the door closed. Before I could even complain about losing my heat she started in with ‘That women can sure talk, I was just waiting for you to say something so I could get away" I just closed my mouth, not even going to try and say anything.

Next stop was the drugstore where the wife had a coop-on for wrapping paper. She headed into the store and I sat back in my seat waiting for the heat to catch up. More flannel's jackets on the street and now I am stuck seeing nothing but flannel every where I look. Kind of like when someone buys a new truck and then all you notice is trucks just like that. I tried to distract myself by looking for pickups with snow plows but all the drivers were wearing flannel. The temperature dropped another degree and I noticed on the bank sign they were flashing CD rates and their temperature was in Celsius it said 0. A little shiver went down my back as not even the hot air blowing in my face and the Beach Boys singing about A Little Duce Coupe is going to keep winter away here at Lake Iwanttobethere