Ape Scent Gloriola

I am glad that it is starting to get warmer and we are finally emerging from the cruel, cold, opposite-of-global-warming winter we all had to endure. However, I must stay true to my negativity and admit that there are certain aspects of the warmer weather that I absolutely abhor.

First, there are the bees, wasps and other flying forms of annoying nature that reappear as soon as the weather begins to warm. Bees are needed for pollination, furthering plant life, blah, blah, blah. I suppose I should be grateful for honey, but since nature has also given us sugar, I would be willing to forego sticky honey if it meant an end to the bee. But, what do wasps do? Or yellow jackets? What do they make or help to sustain? And carpenter bees are the absolute worst -- chewing up my beautiful deck and dive-bombing the kids. If I were as small as a carpenter bee, I would think twice before I fronted a creature that was 200 times my size. Good thing we have those electrified tennis racquets.

Next, there is the pollen. It’s green and dusty and itchy and covers the world in its pea-soup haze. It coats your tongue and throat and makes you feel like you’ve been sucking on a piece of chalk. And my kids have been sneezing like coke-heads ever since it appeared. Science can grow babies in test tubes and clone farm animals -- can’t they come up with some other way for flowers to pollinate? Something less messy and far less sneezy?

But the most offensive aspect of the fahrenheit rising is the hot, nasty, sweaty odor that wafts up off of kids after they have been running around outside in the sun. I just threw up a little in my mouth just thinking about it.

When I was in grade school, I would greet rainy days with relief because it meant we would not be going outside for recess. I much preferred sitting quietly at my desk and reading the latest Judy Blume than suffering through the rest of the afternoon engulfed in the ape scent gloriola that rolled off the over-heated bodies of a classroom of sweaty kids.

I know my children are supposed to get “fresh air and exercise” and all that other healthy crap they spew on the parenting websites. However, even my unending love for my children is no match for the noxious stench of L and Z after a trip to the playground.

I’m not saying I won’t let my kids play outside this summer. I’m just saying they may be taking multiple baths per day. Or maybe I’ll just hose them down before I let them back in the house. There may be nothing more redneck than bathing your kids in the front yard -- but, at least they would be sweet-smelling redneck kids.