Summer is Here! Beware!

The dreadful green of summer!

This morning my astronomers rushed into my room before dawn. They were right to do so. They came to alert me that summer would soon arrive and with it fresh dangers. You see, while all of the other season have their own threats, none can hold a candle to the summer! I remember as a lad (a time of which I will opine at length in my memoir) already knowing the unsavory character of the warm summer months.

Let me now list just a few of the things that I beg you to beware of!

• Sea Monsters - while Massachusetts has its troopers to protect people from this danger most states do nothing, NOTHING, to prevent the creatures of the deep from arriving on the land to cause pain and mayhem!
• Increased Traffic - so many people seem to have so much time on their hands that they can think of nothing better to do than to get behind the wheel (or handlebars) of their cars, trucks, SUVs, crossovers, compacts, sub-compacts, saloons, convertibles, big rigs, bicycles, motorcycles, motorscooters, mopeds, super cars, unicycles, buses, airplanes, trains, balloons, ships, motorboats, sailboats, submarines, helicopters, hang gliders, surf boards, boogie boards and all of the other ridiculous contraptions they use for conveyance. Not only does all of this vehicular hubbub interfere with my far more important travel plans but it also creates an absolute din that makes it difficult to think clearly.
• Insects - speaking of absolute din, these small creatures "punch way above their weight" in the noise department. Chirping crickets, buzzing bees, annoying gnats, maddening mosquitos - all  of them cause no end of distraction and bother!
• Lines - when I attempt to go to my favorite attractions during the summer months, be it the mirthful zoo, the edifying museum, the babbling brook, the majestic waterfall, the quaint seaside village, the mighty mountains, the empty desert, the delicious ice cream stand, the entertaining movie house, the dutiful blood bank, the lazy river I am confronted with lines and crowds, crowds and lines. People are everywhere and all of them (with seemingly nothing better to do) are delaying my pleasure! This is very difficult for me to bear.
• The Color Green - this is, perhaps, an odd pet-peeve of mine but the color green, especially the restful, dappled green of the forrest, the rolling green meadows, the foaming green of the sea - all of it fills me with a sense of loneliness, which can only be eradicated by radical color therapy. (This is something I am very passionate about and of which I shall write at a later day - you can put THAT in your pipe and smoke it (but, actually, you shouldn't smoke).)
• Canned Soft Drinks - yes, you can find canned soft drinks year round but for some reason in the summer I cannot consume enough of these sweet and carbonated beverages. Why should that bother me? Because canned soft drinks, I am told by my dental team, can cause tooth decay; and if there's one thing I dread more than anything - more than pain or loss or death or failure or poverty or the disappearance of my favorite things or a penny turned face down or little burnt potatoes or puppies without tags being found wandering on the street by themselves or big barking dogs or a car horn that surprises me or being tickled by a stranger when I am just trying to buy a hot dog at a baseball game to the point that I have (on more than one occasion) lost control of my bladder or finding glitter or getting a scary fortune in a fortune cooking at a Chinese restaurant or anything that is too dreadful even to mention - more than any of these things I dread tooth decay. A wise woman once told me that the teeth really are the window onto the soul (at least I think it was teeth) and having them decayed or disfigured or discolored or with holes in them means that there is a deeper and potentially more dreadful problem. For most of the year I can avoid canned soft drinks but I am helpless in the summer time. 

It is for these reasons - sea monsters, increased traffic, insects, lines, the color green and canned soft drinks that I abhor the summer.

Thankfully, because I am ANDY LAM! I do not need to suffer these indignities! For I have learned from my geographers that there is another part of the world where it is not the summer. This part of the world is called the "southern hemisphere" and it is at the bottom of the globe. 

I have decided, therefore, to travel to this other planet that is so close to the earth that you can get to it in only a few days. I will stay there until the horrible summer of my planet vanishes and I can be at peace again. I will be writing while I am on this planet, whose lucky people are free from the terror of summer, so you will not have to worry. 

Before I leave for my trip, however, I would like to share a poem with you about the summer that I think you will love. I know I love it. I love it because I wrote it and I love everything that I do!

Summer is here! Beware!

Summer is here! Beware!

Beware the sea monsters - this is their time!

Beware the traffic - snaking in long lines like terrible serpents ready to choke us to death!

Beware the bugs and insects - they make annoying noises and some of them bite!

Beware lines - they will make you wait longer than you want to have fun!

Beware the color green - it is a verdant assault on the eyes! Eeeek!

Beware canned soft drinks - they can contribute to tooth decay!

Summer is here! Beware!

I think that about "sums" things up.

Packing my space ship for the trip to the summer-free southern planet, I am . . .

ANDY LAM!