Stuck in a heat dome

In this dog day of summer, I was looking for a red cap or two. It could be more. This would be a sign of a Donald Trump supporter, who seemed to resemble a TV character. My father noticed my intense expression, even guessed what I was thinking. (I couldn't stop talking about the election.) I told him about the feature I read weeks ago, which surprised him. There was no way that Trump would resemble Skipper, he said. He fondly recalled "Gilligan's Island", as the sitcom inspired him to plan a holiday every summer or two. We were in the Big Apple for a week. There were events under the heat dome. We found ourselves in Kellogg's a few hours later. A few seats away, someone seemed to be in a mood to discuss current events.

“What is the English for ‘female athlete'?” he asked.

My mother was shocked, as his companion's response was loud enough (for us to hear it). I smiled (after hearing it), as it brought back memories. It was my third year in the English Department when we were introduced to a French student from Lille. My coursemates couldn't suppress their laughter while he tried to pronounce "hamburger" correctly. I wouldn't dare join them, as I would imagine myself in his shoes. Pronunciation of French words won't be a walk in a park, and it would pain me if someone made fun of me. Back to the restaurant, I would guess that the customer was a tourist from the other side of the Atlantic. It was hard to figure out the accent.

<2>An objective assessment of language

My tutor once thought that the languages of large, literate societies usually have larger vocabularies until he learned about Archi, a dialect spoken in a small village in southern Dagestan. (This republic is located in the North Caucasus region.) A single verb could occur in more than a million different forms. Prefixes, suffixes, and other modifications would be taken into account, he pointed out. He was perplexed at first. And then he figured out it made sense. Large communities would involve frequent interaction with outsiders, their language undergoing simplification. On the other hand, smaller ones share a base of common knowledge to avoid confusion. And then I mused about the political side.

Dad couldn't forget his visit to a Midwestern small town many moons ago, where the inhabitants seemed to have a fondness for guns and religion. They were frustrated at the jobs that have been gone, and which couldn't be replaced with new ones. Who said that America's wealth was kept in white hands? Obama's ascent to the White House showed that "white" and "mainstream" were no longer synonymous. And Equal could have a commercial value. My old man didn't like my sense of humor, which I learned from my housemates. Perhaps I was too young to care about my surrounding. I was an eager learner, though. I had a capacity for understanding.

Serious thoughts were banished when we munched on our cereal. For one moment, the hot conditions would be perfect.