Haboob

You walk outside with your recycling, and it's like standing between the ruts on Main Street at high noon in a lawless town. Eerie. The residents are hiding in their homes and businesses. Maybe they're watching from behind the shutters. Maybe they can't bear to watch. It's just you and that imposing wall of dust browning out the sky as it sweeps in from the south. Or north, east...west.

You could hide behind the recycling can, or you could hunker down in the carport. Or, smart one that you are, you could skedaddle back into the house, which you do, but only to hastily grab more recycling before brazenly walking back into that fog of dust particles. You're breathing in all the fertilizers, pesticides and natural hazards of the arid soil in this dirty old town, stirred into one huge, threatening cocktail. It's not healthy, but you can't help but feel the excitement of another haboob.

A gang of those fiends have terrorized our town this summer. Nothing can defy them. The wind picks up; the sky is sullied; and when they leave, in their wake a layer of dust over everything. Okay, maybe the word haboob makes it hard to take seriously. But, my friends, read my fingertips: a dust storm is no joke.

It just ain't.