tanning salons for the albino bears
Down at the Camano Cut and Curl, Sheila was opining last week how the weather seemed to be getting preternaturally colder and wetter this so-called summer. “I’ve burned a cord of wood,” she said, “since April. And here it is almost July and we’re down to twigs and kindling.” Mrs. Flatterowski, vice-president of the women’s fire auxiliary, the Flame-Ons, put down her mirror for a pause in scrutinizing her freshly tinted blue curls to say, “Well, if there’s so much Global Warming going on, where is it? I want to know.”
Sheila, diplomatic as always, recognized a political turn to the conversation and tried to divert what would inevitably lead to a potential loss of customer base. “All I’m saying is, where’s my summer? My garden won’t even grow peas this year. The slugs are wearing tea cozees, for heaven’s sake. The corn is frost bit and the mosquitoes are starving for anything warm blooded, which sure isn’t me!”
Mrs. Flatterowski, not be detoured so easily and expecting full service for her $30 perm, muscled through the chemical fog of Cut and Curl to give full throated polemic on everything from polar bear extinction to glacial recession. “Who cares about an albino bear anyway?” she challenged. And Sheila, making brief but meaningful eye contact with Rhonda, the owner of C&C, sighed and admitted she didn’t know what was going on, but whatever it was, how about a little summer?
Rhonda shook her head before finishing Alice Norad’s henna highlight, spinning the chair toward the backbar mirror so Alice could examine the results. Alice touched a finger to her bangs and nodded a curt okay. “You ask me,” she said, addressing Mrs. Flatterowski now, “I don’t like my weather to be so political. Fred and I have a family reunion this weekend and if it’s hot, I’m not going to blame it on greenhouse gases. If it rains, I’m going to cook indoors. God Almighty, I’d like to have one silly weekend where I can eat a hamburger without debating the ethics of meat or what I should do about Eskimoes or raise money to save an igloo. My kids and their husbands and wives, they want to solve the world’s problems, go ahead. But not this weekend.”
Sheila spun Mrs. F to the mirror too, maybe to kaibosh a retort, but Mrs. Flatterowski was up, plastic gown shedding blue curls. “The polar bears are screwed,” she said sadly, “and I’ve never even seen one.” At the counter, paying her bill and adding a more than generous tip, she met Alice’s sideways glance. “I hope you have a sunny day for your family’s reunion.”
“Thank you,” Alice said. “The polar bears will have to make it without our help, I guess.”
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