Pump handle siren

For all of the advanced billing, Winter Storm Marcus proved to be something of a mild-mannered fellow—at least in our neck of the woods. While Boston got walloped with yet another foot of snow, we only received several inches of the white stuff... and none of the freezing rain that had me on generator alert. I shoveled in the morning, worked—the power stayed on, praise be—then headed out on a gray, windy, cold, but not too snowy afternoon, and as I passed my neighbor's hand-cranked water pump, I felt a strange pull: the Siren Song of the pump handle. I don't know who succumbed the first time and, as Garrison Keillor often notes during winter versions of "A Prairie Home Companion," the inexplicable attraction of putting one's tongue on the handle, is especially strong in the Upper Midwest. When the temperature is downright frigid, this is not a good idea, for your tongue freezes to the cold metal instantly and to remove it, well, better not to go into detail. The pump handle is forbidden fruit, you betcha, and though I have, mea culpa, given into temptation on occasion, this time I just walked past the Temptress. On the way home, I stayed on the other side of the street.

This is for the 9th.