I don’t doubt that climate change is upon us. So when the conservative think tank, Heartland Institute, recently set up an electronic billboard that read, “I believe in global warming.  Do you?”  with a billboard sized photo showing the Unabomber, Ted Kaczynski, as the believer, I thought I was self-incinerating.  But I wasn’t.  It was a Six-Oh Dear! symptom–also known as a hot flash.

Admittedly, I wore the pretty-in-the-morning out after more than 23,000 daily wake ups.  But there are mornings when I awaken, and if I grew stubble, I would bear a slight gray-haired resemblance to the Unabomber.   (I pray that those errant black hairs that occasionally sprout from my chin don’t go nuclear on me overnight.  If I thought spouse lost his cool when he woke up to me as a red-head several years back, I don’t even want to envision spouse’s condition if the black curlies do an overnight chin invasion.)

Two weeks back, in my modified Unabomber-on-the- billboard look, I sipped coffee at the breakfast bar and read the local paper.  The room felt Arizona-summer hot.  I asked spouse, “Please turn down the heater?”

“The heater’s not on,” he grumbled back.  “It’s 63 degrees in here!”

Was it the hot coffee or Nicholas D. Kristof’s commentary about The Vatican reprimanding American nuns who tirelessly work to help the poor and disenfranchised, for not squawking about abortions and homosexuality?  I grunted into the spread out newspaper, “How many pedophile nuns has the Vatican closeted?

Sweat dripped down my back.  I challenged spouse’s read-out on the thermostat.  He pulled himself away from the morning weather report on the television, flashed his blue eyes at me, and suggested, “Drink some ice water.  You’re having a hot flash.”

Recently, I drove along the cool and windy coastline toward Morro Bay when a CNN newsman reported over the car radio,  “After a high profile political battle this week over legislation to help victims of domestic abuse, its fate appears to be in limbo. And this policy-dispute-turned-election-year-brawl seems to be far from over.”

“No  #*!*X^#  way,”  yelped  my tendency for blue language to my non-existent passenger.   “And,” I added, “why am I having a hot flash in 60 degree weather???”

Yesterday, during my annual physical exam , the nurse practitioner asked, “Are you still having hot flashes?”

“Watch this,” I warned her.  “Did you know that now the Girl Scouts are being investigated by the Church for association with an international group that endorses safe sex to stop the spread of AIDS?”

Bam! Hot flash in full operation.

“Well, Mrs. Coimbra, these hot flashes should be over by now, but for some women it takes much longer.  Don’t fret.  They will end,” she comforted.

Don’t fret?  Everything I believe to be right and good is challenged as if it were some evil doing by gold-digging scientists, mean-spirited nuns, women who deserve beatings, and now Girl Scouts!

Is it hot in here or am I having a hot flash?