Wyoming wind — Nature’s way of saying ‘shut up’

Listen up, Wyoming. If you’ve lived here longer than a cup of coffee stays hot, you already know the wind isn’t weather. It’s a personality. A loud, rude, opinionated visitor who shows up uninvited, stays too long and steals your hat on the way through. Don’t worry; you’ll get it back and lose 5 pounds in the process of chasing it down halfway across Newcastle.

I’m convinced the Wyoming wind has one job: to remind us that we are temporary and insignificant. It does this by trying to turn us into waving flags — or by sandblasting us, ready for a new coat of paint.

Take last Tuesday. I stepped out of the truck to grab a cup of coffee. The wind hit me so hard my hat achieved low-Earth orbit. I watched it sail over the Gateway Travel Center like a UFO before it landed on the roof of a semi headed for Custer. That hat had my favorite fishing hook pinned to it. Somewhere near Sioux Falls, a trucker is probably wondering why his new lid comes with free tackle. You’re welcome!

They say conversation is the bedrock of community. Try having one during a sustained 45-mile-an-hour blast. You lean in, mouth open, projecting your carefully chosen words with all the dignity you can muster, and immediately inhale half the county. Congratulations, you’re now speaking fluent Dirt. Your profound thoughts on last weekend’s parade come out sounding like a coyote with laryngitis.

The wind doesn’t discriminate. It attacks everything and everyone with equal enthusiasm, sort of like a toddler who’s found your candy stash. I swear, last weekend I heard the wind yell, “MINE!”

I once watched a full-grown rancher — I mean, this man was built like a fridge — try to walk across the fairgrounds during what I will just call a blow. He was leaning forward at a 45-degree angle like he was auditioning for a mime troupe. The wind suddenly died for three glorious seconds. The man shot forward like someone yanked the emergency brake on a speeding semi. He face-planted right in front of a rodeo horse getting ready for barrel racing. The girl on the horse was not impressed. The horse, itself, brayed and nickered as if it was having the time of his life.

And let’s not forget the most under-rated terrorists on the planet. Tumbleweeds; those prickly bastards! They become guided missiles when the wind gets bored. They don’t just roll. They hunt. I swear I saw one change direction last week to take out a guy’s kneecap. He went down like he’d been sniped. His wife stood there filming it, because in Wyoming that’s considered quality entertainment. She almost sounded like the rodeo horse. I probably did too.

And don’t get me started on what the wind does to women with any sort of hairstyle. I’ve seen perfectly normal ladies walk into the café looking like they’d lost a fight with a blender. They sit down, sigh, and say the same thing every time: “It’s doing that thing again!” after coughing to clear her throat. We all nod solemnly. We know what “that thing” is. Then she went back to coughing.

My dog has developed what I call Wind-Induced Existential Dread. Normally he’s a proud cocker spaniel who fears nothing except the vacuum cleaner, and the neighbors, and anyone else who happens to saunter by — including our cats. Actually, come to think of it, he acts pretty much the same all the time. Startled. But when that first big gust hits, he tucks his tail, gives me the most panicky look and tries to crawl inside my coat like a rabid squirrel. I don’t blame him. If I had that much fluffy fur area relative to my weight, I’d be halfway to Montana by now.

We’ve all tried to fight back. Some install fancy windbreaks, which do absolutely no good at all. Others buy heavier hats with chin straps that leave permanent grooves in your face and almost slit you ear to ear. My neighbor mounted an old satellite dish on his shop roof just to see what would happen. The wind accepted the challenge, turned that dish into a weather vane from hell, and now it spins so fast it picks up radio stations from Nebraska, Colorado, Utah, Idaho, Montana and South Dakota over and over again in a repeating digital chain of unrelated programming. He claims he can get Paul Harvey reruns if the atmospheric conditions are right, but only for a second.

The wind even ruins our attempts at romance. Nothing says “I love you” like trying to make a foo-foo cutesy statement about how she looks while your wife’s glasses are being sandblasted into frosted glass. She’ll remember the moment, alright — mostly the part where she couldn’t see or hear you and thought you were having a stroke.

Here’s the ridiculous truth: We secretly love it. Not the inconvenience, but the sheer audacity. In a world trying to wrap everything in bubble wrap, Wyoming wind tells you to toughen up and hang on. It keeps the weak ones away and the rest of us stronger, if not a bit more humble.

So next time you’re out there eating dirt, chasing your hat and wondering why you live in the least convenient place in the union, just smile through gritted teeth. That’s the Wyoming way.

Oh no! We’ve waited too long. The wind is yelling at us again.

And honestly … we’re probably wrong and it’s probably right. So do what I do. Just shut up. No one can hear you anyway.