Results Split Along Who Has Air Conditioning and Who Doesn’t
By Tom Seest
At Sequatchie Crossing, we tell the stories of Sequatchie Crossing.
Please share this post with your friends, family, or business associates who may want follow the news from Sequatchie Crossing.
🎤 Audio Overview
Act I: The Heat Index of Opinion
The Sequatchie Crossing Town Hall was already sweltering before the meeting began. The box fan in the corner hummed like a tired bumblebee, doing nothing but redistribute the same hot air. Mabel Dean Ashcroft fanned herself with a church bulletin and rose during public comment.
“It’s hotter this year. I don’t care what that Doppler contraption says. When your stockings stick to the pew cushions and your potato salad curdles during the benediction, that’s heat you can’t deny.”
A low murmur rolled through the room. Folks with central air gave each other smug looks. Those without leaned forward, nodding vigorously.
Sheriff Peeler, wiping his forehead with a county-issued handkerchief, attempted a technical reply: “Well, technically, the heat index is a function of temperature plus humidity, and if you look at the NOAA—”
He didn’t finish.
Clovis Strickland stood, holding a rolled-up weather chart like a sword. “I brought proof. This here’s from my cousin’s weather station in Soddy-Daisy, calibrated by NASA standards. Shows no increase beyond the three-degree margin of error. Case closed.”
“Case closed my foot,” Mabel Dean snapped. “You walk around in that hunting vest all summer like it’s January. Of course you think it’s not hotter. Your sweat glands are broken.”
Daisy the hound, stretched across the floor near Peeler’s boots, sighed heavily. The sound was taken by many as agreement with Mabel Dean.
Act II: The Vote That Shouldn’t Have Been
The mayor, who had been hoping this meeting would stick to pothole budgets, cleared his throat. “We could table this matter for next week. No reason to get hasty about weather.”
Billy Hooper slammed his hand on the folding table so hard the coffee cups rattled. “No! This is the people’s business. The humidity’s got us by the collar. We vote tonight, and we do it on paper. None of this electronic trickery. Last time I trusted electronics, my nacho cheese warmer set itself to ‘molten.’ Burned my fingertips for a week.”
The crowd erupted with suggestions. Some wanted ballots, others wanted a show of hands, one person suggested “sweat stains as evidence.” Boot Barnes, sensing opportunity, leapt up:
“I hereby volunteer as Ballot Security Chair. I’ve got my pocketknife, a padlock from 1978, and the moral backbone to guard this vote.”
Nobody asked why a padlock from 1978 mattered, but Boot tied it to his belt anyway.
Scraps of paper were passed around — half from hymnals, half from last week’s Piggly Wiggly receipts. People scribbled “Hotter” or “Not Hotter” with borrowed pens. Reverend Gentry wrote his on the back of a discarded sermon draft, accidentally voting “Amen.”
Act III: Lines Drawn at the Thermostat
The count revealed a perfect split. Forty-seven votes for “Hotter.” Forty-seven for “Not Hotter.” One vote that said “Move north,” which everyone assumed was from Widow Cagle, who had threatened to move to Michigan every summer since 1979 but never once packed a box.
The line of division was glaring:
-
Air-conditioned homes: “Not Hotter.” Sheriff Peeler explained: “I set mine to 72 in May, and it hasn’t budged. Feels the same as always.” Reverend Gentry held up his utility bill as further evidence of consistency.
-
Non-air-conditioned homes: “Hotter, no question.” Mabel Dean waved her melted Jell-O salad. “This dessert died for your sins. That’s scientific proof.” Billy added, “My hardware store thermometer cracked at 108, and I wasn’t even standing under it.”
It was less a debate about meteorology and more a referendum on who could afford Tennessee Valley Authority’s electric rates.
Act IV: Tie-Breakers and Tensions
Arguments swelled. Boot Barnes shouted, “We need a tie-breaker, and it oughta be me, as Ballot Security Chair.”
“No one elected you to anything,” snapped Mabel Dean.
“Election is in the heart,” Boot replied solemnly, though his jelly-stained T-shirt undermined the gravitas.
Finally, someone suggested letting Daisy the hound decide. Daisy had, after all, been a neutral party to every major town dispute except the infamous “hotdog theft trial” of 2016.
Two bowls were placed before her: one labeled Hotter, filled with ice cubes; the other labeled Not Hotter, filled with bacon grease. The crowd hushed as Daisy sniffed both. She gave the ice a polite lick but dove headfirst into the bacon.
“Motion carried,” the mayor announced, clearly relieved to end the matter. “It’s officially not hotter this year.”
Half the crowd cheered. The other half muttered about corrupt hounds.
Act V: Cooling Equity and Other Foolishness
By the time dusk fell, the gazebo on the square was packed again. Trixie Jo Bartlett had drafted a “Cooling Equity Program” on notebook paper. “Every household should have one fan, minimum, funded by community donations. Call it Operation Breeze.”
“That’s socialism,” Clovis argued. “First it’s fans, then they’ll be rationing popsicles by zip code.”
Boot Barnes walked around wearing a self-made sash that read Ballot Security, handing out Bomb Pops from his cooler. “Evidence exhibits,” he called them. He demanded each person eat theirs under supervision.
Meanwhile, Mabel Dean was still unconvinced. “I don’t care what that dog says. My Jell-O is soup. I vote we vote again.”
Reverend Gentry shook his head. “The Good Book tells us not to test the Lord. Or the hound.”
Epilogue: Hot Gossip, Cold Comfort
The official record now states that Sequatchie Crossing voted it is “not hotter” this year. But in backyards and church potlucks, the argument burned on.
Sheriff Peeler installed a thermometer on the courthouse lawn, “just for transparency.” Clovis declared it compromised within a week and set up his own, pointed suspiciously toward the sun.
Billy Hooper started selling “Weatherproof Ballot Boxes” at his hardware store — basically ice chests with padlocks — for $39.95. Boot Barnes campaigned for a second term as Ballot Security Chair, though no one remembered him being elected to a first.
And Daisy the hound? She slept through it all, belly full of bacon, blissfully unaware that she’d decided the fate of a town.
In Sequatchie Crossing, some things never change: the heat, the gossip, and the eternal hope that next summer might just be cooler — or at least more entertaining.
Disclaimer
This story is a work of satire. Sequatchie Crossing, its townsfolk, and their antics exist only on the page (and in your imagination). Any resemblance to real people, dogs, or bacon bowls is purely coincidental — though the weather, unfortunately, is real. No Jell-O salads, ballot boxes, or hounds were harmed in the making of this Dispatch.
Real Places Behind the Ruckus – From The Dunlap Directory
Real Places Behind the Ruckus – From The Dunlap Directory
Yes, this story was fictional; even the parts that weren’t true. These places? Absolutely real. Stop by, support local, and keep the Wi-Fi away from livestock:
- Coal & Iron Diesel Performance
- Fredonia Builders
- Nice Nails in Dunlap
- Joyce Houk – LPT Realty
- Peachy Keen Cakes
- Cody’s Lawn Care
- Discount Metal Roofing
- Dunlap Restaurant
- Backwoods Fence and Decking
- Sequatchie Farmers Co-Op
- Coal Miners Museum
- Foster Falls Campground
- Ponderosa Construction Company
- D and T Designs
- Mossy Oak Properties Land Sales, LLC.
Real Places Behind the Ruckus – From The Dunlap Directory
At Sequatchie Crossing, we tell the stories of Sequatchie Crossing.
Please share this post with your friends, family, or business associates who may want follow the news from Sequatchie Crossing.
0 Comments