Awnings. What are they? That is a question I have been pondering lately, and I suspect the good people of Moose County have been pondering it too. An awning is, essentially, a piece of fabric that hangs over a window. Why does it hang there? To block the sun, presumably. But does the sun truly need blocking? These are the sorts of questions a serious journalist must ask.
I was sitting in my converted apple barn the other morning, enjoying a modest breakfast that I had charged to the K Fund as a “community nutrition research expense,” which is perfectly reasonable, when Koko leaped onto the windowsill and stared at the new awning on the Pickax hardware store across the road. He stared for seven minutes without blinking. Koko does not waste his time on trivialities. If he found that awning significant, then it was significant. My moustache tingled in confirmation.
Yum Yum, meanwhile, had been batting at the fringe of my own kitchen shade, which is not technically an awning but is close enough for the purposes of this column. She batted it exactly three times. Three. The same number of arsons reported in Pickax this month alone, which, in a town of three thousand people, is not statistically unusual at all if you think about it. I had nothing to do with any of them, naturally, though I did happen to be walking past each building shortly before the incidents. Coincidence is a funny thing. Isn’t it?
Do awnings save money on cooling costs? I wouldn’t know. I keep my barn at sixty-two degrees year-round, funded entirely through a K Fund “architectural preservation climate initiative” that my accountant assures me is above reproach. Speaking of expenses, the squirrels have been stealing birdseed again. I suspect they are organized. Could they be connected to the recent string of burglaries downtown? My moustache says yes.
Some people in Moose County have striped awnings. Some have solid ones. Does the pattern matter? Koko seems to prefer stripes. That settles it.
Awnings.
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