MODINE: Flash Points

This planet hit menopause at the same time I did.
It has global warming; I have hot flashes.
Now, this got nothing to do what the kind of flashing certain types of people do for beads.
This is the kind of flashing where you heat up from the inside like somebody turned your thermostat up, but a few minutes later, you are freezing.
They could have used me for a traffic light a few months ago when we didn’t have nothing but four-way stops in this city.
I called up my friend Awlette and told her about it, but she just said she wishes she had some of them hot flashes herself. She is still freezing her unmentionables off in Chicago, and here it is April.
Then she tells me I should try soy in my diet. I tell her I eat Chinese food at least once a week, and I use two or three packets of soy sauce every single time, but I still got hot flashes.
A while back I happen to be in the Walgreens, and lo and behold, they are selling “hot-flash cool-down strips.” The sign says they were invented by a leading gynecologist and will work discreetly for hours. I pay $10 of my good FEMA money for a box of five, and I put them in my purse, and I go off to meet my gentleman friend, Lust, for lunch at Stanley’s over there on Decatur Street.
I feel a hot flash coming on even before we order, so I take the package out and peek at the directions from behind the menu, and it says to slap one of these gel strips on the back of your neck. I excuse myself and go to the ladies, still flashing, and I open the box and each strip is in a separate little plastic pouch, which it turns out you can’t open without a weapon. I slash at it with my car keys, and I chew at it awhile, and finally my hot flash goes away on its own, so I go back to the table. At least I saved myself $2.
I bet that leading gynecologist was a man. And why is he talking about my neck? My neck ain’t exactly his area of expertise.
One day I am standing in front the refrigerator fanning the door open and shut to cool off. I am also checking on what’s to eat, and I notice a head of cabbage that has been there since Miss Larda caught it at the St. Patrick’s Day parade. Usually she takes them home and cooks them, but her trailer is pretty small, and she don’t like to eat cabbage when she is in small quarters, if you know what I mean.
And a light bulb pops on over my head.
About a month before Katrina, I remember I read this weird story in the papers about a South Korean baseball pitcher named Park Myung-Hwan, who used to get real hot when he was playing out in the sun. He didn’t have no gel strips, but what he did was he froze cabbage leaves and put them under his hat. Only, one day his hat fell off and the South Korean baseball officials were very upset. I guess cabbage leaves on the head signifies something really nasty in Korea. Anyway, they made him stop.
Well, I don’t have no Korean baseball officials to answer to, so this seems like a good idea. Except I don’t wear a hat. And if I slapped a cabbage leaf on the back of my neck, it wouldn’t be discreet.
Then I think of just where to put them.
First, I freeze all the individual leaves on a cookie sheet in my freezer.
Next hot flash, I take two leaves and shove them in my bra. And aaahhhh – no more hot flash. Just like that. I have discovered the cure.
I can sell them and get rich. I will call them “Organic Bosom Coolers.”
Of course, there is one disadvantage to these coolers – they present problems when I am in public.
I find this out when Lust takes me out to dinner. I put on a pair of cabbage leaves before I leave. I also pack a spare pair in a baggie between two blue cold compresses, which I keep in my freezer for when somebody bumps their head, and then I stuff them in my purse. I barely manage to snap it closed, but I am prepared for flashes.
Lust even compliments me on my figure. He says I look particularly buxom. I tell him it’s all in his mind. He says it’s always on his mind. Ain’t that the truth.
Lust is in the mood for Chinese, and we wind up going all the way to Metairie to a Oriental buffet. We are on our second platefuls when I start to heat up, so I jump up to head for the ladies to put in a fresh pair of bosom coolers. But when I pick up my purse, it pops open, and my whole refrigerator pack spills out on the floor.
The waiter looks at it and says, “Planning to take home a few extra shrimp?”
I got no idea what he is talking about, but it turns out they been having problems with people filling up their faces and then scooping a couple more meals into their purses. And these people have purses equipped like mine.
He calls the manager over. So right in front of everybody, I got to explain about the bosom coolers and Park Myung-Hwan. I guess they decide nobody would make up a story like that. And they apologize.
And to make up, they give me a whole bottle of soy sauce.
I hope this planet does better with the global warming.