Scattered Thoughts From Inside A Heat Wave

So hot, all you can see is red.

 Chicago isn’t made for this 100-degrees-and-humid weather. Damp, sticky muck like this is only appropriate for tropical beaches where one can recline under the shade of a mango tree while drinking directly from a coconut. Here it’s just gross.

Is it wrong—okay—how wrong is it to pretend I’m late for something when I see little kids selling lemonade? I hurry past with a helpless shrug. Sorry kids! I just don’t have time to stop for your watered-down Minute Maid. The worst part is that the heat makes me actually want the lemonade, watery as it might be, I just don’t want to have to interact with children.

It’s no wonder there are so many murders in the summer. This heat makes me want to tear down the traffic light for taking too long to change. It makes me want to stab the stupid trees for not making enough shade.

Seriously though. Why isn’t there more shade? It’s after 2pm. Shouldn’t the shade be more?

I wonder if slinking along these tiny isthmuses of shade along the edges of the sidewalk makes me look like I’m practicing to be a ninja.

No. It doesn’t. It makes me seem more like an unusually sweaty vampire.

Okay. Fine. I look just like everyone else: like a grumpy, sticky slug trying to survive without punching anybody in the face.

Why is summer the season of festivals? In this kind of heat the last thing anyone wants to do is stand close enough to a stranger to incur accidental touching. It’s the kind of heat that makes one’s own sweat intolerable—stranger-sweat might as well be radioactive E.Coli mixed with Ebola. This is why fights happen.

Festivals should be in the winter when it’s so cold one finds oneself  surreptitiously spooning a passed-out Cubs fan on the train just for a little extra body heat. Those are the desperate days when they should hold festivals. They can set up fire pits and roast whole pigs accompanied by steaming, bottomless cauldrons of  glögg. Everyone would want to dance and mingle and huddle together and everyone would buy way more alcohol and food than they do at summer festivals.

Hmm. That might lead to drunken orgies instead of drunken brawls, which, I suppose, could be a different kind of logistical headache.

Uggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

This heat is dumb. Beads of sweat are rolling all the way down my back and into my underwear. Yes, that’s too much information. Isn’t that the problem with grossly oppressive heat though? Everything is too much information. The heat makes people feel licensed to take off shirts and wear things that are very short and very white and very small, exposing parts that are better left unexposed. Smells become more potent: you can tell exactly where a dog relieved itself and where a restaurant’s grease disposal is and who on the train isn’t wearing socks. It’s all too much information!

Thank god for central air. Ha ha suckers with 'fans' and 'windows.'

Wait. Is the air working? Noooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!