One of the local jokes is, “If you don’t like this weather, just wait five minutes.  It’s due to change.” In April, that isn’t a joke, it’s the damn truth. Days when the mercury touches 85, are followed by fronts containing frost warnings.  Gardners, who put in plants weeks ago, get chilblains covering up seedlings and cursing the cold snap that just showed up in the forecast. On its seesaw course from late winter to spring, the weather here defies prediction, not just from day-to-day, but hour to hour. This is especially hard on GRITS (aka Girls Raised in the South).  Southern Women are raised to believe despite, limited income, energy and time, they must always appear “dressed for the weather.” This means April can drive a girl plumb crazy.  I’ll show you what I mean

6 a.m – 45 degrees (F)  – forget the sundress you set out last night and reach for the fleece hoodie and corduroy slacks you’ve been wearing since November.

10 a.m. – 65 degrees – You are smothering in corduroy and fleece, and you look like an idiot next to the spring

1 p.m.- the thermometer says 72, but it feels so much warmer, you ditch the cardigan and swap the slacks for a skirt.

2 p.m. 75 degrees in the shade, feels more like 80 out here in the sun. Time to change to a halter and shorts. Why don’t they go ahead and open the swimming pool?

4 p.m.  Where in the hell did the sun go?  Temp’s dropping.  Better change back to a pencil skirt

6 p.m.  When people can see goose pimples on your calves and thighs, it’s too cold for skirts. Where’s Global Warming when you need it?

8 p.m.  I’d climb back into those damn corduroys if I could find them under this pile of clothes!

Now, this is just April on a day-to-day basis.  Add in this two occasions with sartorial significance that often fall in this period and add to a female’s distraction.  EASTER and PROM.

GRITS take both Easter and Prom seriously.  These events can take weeks of dress shopping and preparation.  The problem is, the weather rarely cooperates.  High school girls skin themselves into bare-shouldered, skin-tight gowns on a night when it’s chilly or downright freezing!  And nothing says Easter down here, like the faithful rising for a sunrise service that takes place in the rain. Heck, we’ve seen snow on April first, tornados on Palm Sunday, and hot sweats on April 15th that had nothing to do with taxes, but everything to do with the heat pump failing.  In the meantime, the weeds are growing a foot every day, allergy sufferers are on their last legs, and the peach farmers are begging James Spann to keep the cold away from their blossoming trees.  We can’t count on anything, weather-wise, much this side of Memorial Day.

So if you see an Alabamian talking to him or herself, give the poor soul a break.  Chances are they’re not obsessed by Economic Woes or the Fragile State of the World.  They’re not contemplating the latest public scandal or their rich, troubled heritage.  The problem is a lot simpler and more immediate than that.  We’re all just trying to survive April.