Saturday, January 2, 2010

AUSTRALIAN HEAT-WAVES

The heat-wave is part of the "Furniture" in this country and lately we have been having a WHOPPER considering the fact that this is January 3, day 12 of the southern summer. There is no doubt that worse and in fact MUCH WORSE is on the way as traditionally the hottest 3 weeks are the second half of February and the first week of March. During a severe heat-wave about 1980, I left work about 4PM in my red Toyota and drove to a nearby shopping centre at Hornsby, the temperature would have been about 42C and back those days there was little air conditioning. Tired, hot and bothered I drove into the car park and not concentrating drove in the exit, a very old lady about 83 was driving out and I realized my mistake so I stop the car and ask her to move aside and please let me in, I was about 32 then and she replied abruptly "Young man you made the mistake, you get yourself out of it, do the right thing reverse out and enter in the entrance", Very upset at her attitude, I said firmly "the traffic is coming down that main road at 80KPH, I am not backing out on that, it is not safe"to which she replied, "You should have thought of this before you made the mistake, it is a good lesson for you to be more careful, it is YOUR problem, into that car and out I will wait for you", I got in my car and was so tired, hot and miserable I slammed the door in a fury and the glass shattered everywhere. The old lady came down and said "that was not wise", to which I replied "No it was not, it will cost me a new window", she seemed nice about it and as she was old and feeble I felt sorry for snapping at her and apologized saying it was the heat, she likewise said sorry saying that the heat was also the problem with her, she walked around my car and noticed the sticker on the back window which said "Jesus said I am the way, the truth and the life", it was highly embarrassing after my temper tantrum that dreadful HOT DAY

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