Yes, As a Matter of Fact, It is Hot Enough for Me

This originally appeared in The Nashville Graphic

By Michael K. Brantley

            Look, I don’t care what you call it.

            You can tell me about Gregorians and and equinoxes and solstices, or whatever you want, but when the temperature hits 90 with regularity, it is summer.

            If it makes you feel better to hold off until June 21 this year to officially call it summer, then fine. My car seat burns say otherwise.

            If you’ve seen someone walk through a spider web (also a summer thing) and seen how they go to swatting to get it out of their face and hair, then you know what I look like when I step outside these days.

            I’m already having problems with the weather. I’ve noted several days of 90-plus temps on the thermometer in my car, but I really didn’t need an instrument to tell me.

            When it gets to be hot as @#$%, it’s summer. I don’t care what the calendar says.

            I don’t need the TV weather people doing remote reports telling me it is hot. I know it is hot. That’s why I’m inside..

            We don’t need the insulting “children and the elderly” need to avoid the heat because it could be deadly. Well, I’m neither the children or the elderly, and I am already feeling sweat running in areas I’d rather not specify in a family oriented newspaper.

            There are other things I have little patience for besides stifling heat that takes my breath away as soon as I open the door.

            I will never understand people asking if it’s hot enough for me. What kind of question is that? Yes, it is hot enough for me, since it is officially hot as @#$%. Why do you think I’ve sweated through my clothes walking across the parking. It has been hot enough for me since March. And it won’tt get cool now until November.

            Almost as bad is “well, think about what it was like when folks didn’t have air conditioning.” I don’t want to think about that. I know what it was like. It was hot as @#$% then, too, and we couldn’t get comfortable. I remember have a box fan to “cool” my room, but really it only seemed to move the heat around so it surrounded me.

When it gets to be hot as @#$%, it’s summer. I don’t care what the calendar says.

            One of the happiest days of my childhood was when my parents started throwing around money and got me a window unit air conditioner for my room. It was amazing, and Mama had to make me get out from in front of it before I “caught pneumonia,” a risk I was more than willing to take.

            Another day I remember was when my parents remodeled the house and added central air. It is one of the greatest inventions in world history.

            If you want to argue that, get back with me in a North Carolina July.

            People like to say 1) it gets hotter than it used to or 2) people nowadays can’t handle the heat.

            What? What does handle the heat mean? Is it s a trick question about climate change?

            This is like that crazy a notion known as camping. Don’t get me wrong, if you like to camp or live like the pioneers, that is your right, and I am all about some personal and individual liberty. But I’m here to tell you, you can have my share of that.

            The pioneers didn’t think it would be fun to sleep on rocks or grass or out in the rain because it might be fun. No sir, they did it because they had no choice. I feel the pioneers would be embarrassed if they came back now, and that if I had a conversation with one, it would go something like this:

            Pioneer: So, you’ve got this home with electricity and a bed and a machine that makes the air cold in the summer and warm in the winter. Tell me again why you are sleeping in a bag on the ground.

            Me: You know, to connect with nature and live like you did.

            Pioneer: Yeah, well, the way we lived sucked. That’s why our descendants invented stuff. Like air conditioning. You realize it was hot as @#$% in our day, too, right?

            Me: Yes, but you lived simply.

            Pioneer: Yeah, well, we also sometimes ate fellow pioneers to stay alive.

            I’ve been told my transplant meds make me less heat tolerant, but I’ve been less heat tolerant for a long time. Maybe it’s part of being “big boned” or having “good circulation.”

            It’s interfered with my projects for sure. That fire pit and those bushes that need trimming are going to have to wait. That extra garden? I’m  “waiting for it to cool off” which means “almost dark” and I’ve already stepped on an implement more than once this “summer.” Heat makes me itch, and bugs think I’m delicious. They’ve taken enough of my blood that there is a growing nation of immuno-suppressed mosquitoes thriving in the county.

            Enjoy your sunbathing, yard work and outdoor activities and whatever heat stroke-teasing fun you might have in mind. I’ll be inside trying not to stick to the furniture with my horde of Gatorade and my hand on the thermostat button, dialing it back to the Mortgage Payment to Duke Power setting.