Shut the Hell Up Already!

This is probably my least favorite time of the year. I'm not talking about the thin layer of yellow pollen that covers everything in the spring, nor am I speaking of the fact that I have to mow my lawn again--honestly, I think I'm beginning to develop a Hankhillian relationship with my lawn. Heh. Lawn care.

No, it's not that I don't appreciate spring at all; there are a lot of aspects about spring that I really, really like! For instance, fewer college chicks wearing sweaters and long pants at Target. And the fact that the corner where my computer desk sits isn't fucking freezing every night when I sit down to check out fruitstompingvixens.net work on my latest manuscript or play a video game or stalk you all on Facebook read your latest words of wisdom on certain social networking sites.

But, this time of year is madness. The weather has some serious bi-polar issues, and it leaves me decidedly unamused. Oh sure, it's 80 degrees during the day, sunny, pleasant, warm. But then it plunges into some sort of subarctic freeze at night. It's too warm to put on pajamas to sleep when I go to bed, but during the night I'm clinging to the side of my wife, siphoning off any spare heat she can afford, and thinking "if I get up to close the window, it won't be as cold in here, but I might freeze solid on the way to the sash..." I won't even go into the phenomenon I refer to as "perma-turtle".

And while this might be nice when those aforementioned college chicks who are no longer wearing sweaters and long pants when they get caught in the evening temperature swoon, thus causing their--*ahem*--"headlights to come on", I don't appreciate the bone-shaking shivering cold that creeps into the bedroom at night. Naturally, this chill is exacerbated by the fan that I must have blowing over me at all times while I'm trying to sleep. I can do cold, I can do stuffy, but I can't do cold and stuffy!

However, the worst part of this time of year is the early morning cacophony that rousts me from my slumber long before the soul-piercing beeping of my alarm clock is set to awaken me. Yes, those horny little feathered fuckers are the bane of my predawn hours.

I might have mentioned it before, but I essentially live in the woods. My house is surrounding on two sides by a pretty solid swath of vegetation, and on the left of my neighbor's house, there's also a pretty good amount of trees and forest. It's a bird's paradise, and they love to proclaim their love for the woody world around them at the top of their highly-efficient little lungs. Cardinals, mockingbirds, robins, chickadees, titmice, sapsuckers and some little fucker that says "twEET TWeet chirp chirp chirp" conspire against me in those hours of the false dawn.

The worst, though, is the fucking red-shouldered hawk. Ever hear one of these things? You know how a red-tailed hawk has a high, keening wail? A red-shouldered hawk has a call that is a mixture of a klaxon going off and a puppy being curb-stomped. And they never shut the fuck up. I totally understand why Tripp Isenhour pelted one with golf balls to get it to shut the hell up.

So, there I lie, in my bed, teeth chattering, trembling, freezing to death, exhausted to the point of tears, with a myriad of feathered menaces flitting from one branch to another, screaming to one another about their territory, their sex life, and how nice it will be to see the sun in several hours.

It's enough to make a guy want to close the window.