The Skeeter Daddle Diaries

For months now the lamestream news, desperate for something to report other than the President’s latest tweetstorms, has been hyping the lunar eclipse. “Life changing,” some of the folks interviewed claimed, one guy having gone to 8 or 9 around the globe. I guess his life needs changing the way my truck’s oil needs changing. Regularly and often.

Down in Oregon where the total eclipse will be visible along a track stretching from this coast to the Atlantic ocean, traffic is already starting to back up out in the rural areas where folks have reserved every motel, airbnb and cabin available. Needless to say, the laws of supply and demand are in full force. Hotel rooms run into the thousands of dollars, camping spaces go for hundreds. Good luck finding a porta potty, the rumor is there are none to be found at this late date if you were contemplating renting your backyard to a few dozen sungazers. Gas prices are shooting up and now the stations report they’re completely out of fuel. Life changing? I’m starting to see the truth in that observation.

Up here we’ll get 90% of the eclipse. I was going to offer up our airbnb rental at 90% of the going rate down in Nowhere, Oregon, but I was a little late getting a jump on the capitalist action. You snooze, you lose. I could feel sorry for myself, you know, knowing my life will not change with this astronomical event of the decade, but I plan to be out in the eelgrass Monday morning chasing Dungeness crab around. I’m hoping when the daylight suddenly goes very dim on these primitive creatures, they’ll freak and come out of their hidey holes. Me, a modern boy fully versed in the laws of nature and the orbits of the moon, will be waiting for them. I know in these post-modern Trumpian times, knowledge can be a useless weapon sometimes, but the Day of the Eclipse, I’m figuring the Light’s going to come back. Call me an optimist.

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