“I can't get no ... satisfaction!”

- Mick Jagger

Well, it seems that summer has finally decided to show up, and while I am enjoying the past few weeks of wearing shorts, eating ice cream and playing Frisbee golf anytime I like, I am realizing a peculiar observation as of late. As the thermostat starts showing some real color, people all around are showing theirs as well, in the sense that none of us is ever very satisfied.

For the past three months all we've done is drone on about the cold temperatures and the fact that every day has been a washout. You couldn't make plans unless they were indoors - and forget about going camping. No matter how much you love the outdoors, once it started raining you were no longer roughing it, you were just bumming it instead. But like a scared actor with stage fright the sun finally made his grand entrance and for the past two weeks we have at least had a solid reason to call it summer.

And what's the first thing we do? Complain that it's too hot. But I think this is one of those attitudes that gets started when we're small and just goes on into adulthood. What is my basis of reasoning? A little 5-year-old girl named Melanie. Back story; my friends decided they needed a night out and asked me if I wouldn't mind baby sitting their daughter for the evening. I gladly offered my time, though in hindsight I should have known something was up when her mom said they needed a “night off.”

She was dropped off at 4 p.m. and we headed to the playground. And this is where it started. She ran to the swings, and after the first push she wanted to go down the slide. Then it was on to the monkey bars, the teeter tauter and a climbing wall. Within 10 minutes I was tired but she was wound up like one of those little dogs that never stops barking. I would have buried my head in the sand but she ran to the swings again the minute I picked up the shovel to build a castle.

Out of the blue she decides that she's hungry so as we walked back to my house I asked her if she wanted hot dogs or mac and cheese. I should have known it was a set up when she piped that she wanted hot dogs, because as soon as I started to cut the Hoffmans on her plate, she suddenly gets a craving for Kraft!

And this, my friends, is the true nature of us all. We're just never happy with what's put in front of us. So feel free to complain about the heat. Then yell about the cold when that comes, too. Perhaps if you complain long enough, something good will come out of it. Though, you probably won't like that either.

Auburn native Bradley Molloy's column appears here, each

Sunday. He can be reached at lovonian@hotmail.com