Damn, it’s been hot…EVERYWHERE. I keep seeing different maps online that show the whole country colored orange (the color that usually represents that it’s cooking out there) and 100-degree temperatures from east to west and north to south. If it stays like this, Canadians will stay home to keep warm in the winter.
I keep hearing that there are things called heat domes popping up all over the country. All I know is that when I walk outside, I start to melt like those NAZIs at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark. Am I being hyperbolic?
Due to a health issue of mine, I have been taking a medication that makes it difficult to deal with heat. My body has become a walking furnace, and no amount of air conditioning will help. Ask any menopausal woman, and they’ll tell you. I have cooling fans stashed everywhere, including by my softball bat bag and golf bag. If I don’t have a fan, I use a piece of cardboard to take its place.
I have been told by my doctors to try and avoid being out in the hot sun. So, being the agreeable, rule-following guy I am, I head right outside in the middle of the summer to play golf and softball. In the effort to avoid dying of dehydration and suffering horrific cramps, I am draining the world’s supply of Smart Water, recommended by my doctors because it contains electric lights. May I ask a question? How do they get those electric lights into the bottle, and do they really help stave off dehydration? I could have purchased the bottle of Smart Water with Al Kaline, but how does a dead Hall of Fame baseball player help with rehydration?
“OUCH!” My wife just slapped me upside the head and told me it’s electrolytes and alkaline. Oops, I guess I’m a little too literal.
It’s been difficult, but I really shouldn’t whine; most of the female population has been dealing with “hot flashes” since the time of Eve. Just a fig leaf wasn’t enough to relieve Eve’s uncomfortable condition. I’m pretty sure that’s in the bible, the Catholic one. It was removed from the King James Version (prude).
Why is it hot? There are plenty of experts who are happy to tell you why: climate change. Duh, yeah! Over the last forty years, it has been getting hotter and hotter. I know weather has been cyclical over history, but it seems as if it has been on a downhill slide since I was a kid. I grew up in the Chicago area, and remember when winters meant getting cold in November and staying cold until March. When it snowed, it snowed a lot, and it stayed on the ground until it began to melt in late February. In today’s world, my son, who lives in Wisconsin, tells me that he doesn’t really get much snow in the winter, and it doesn’t hang around very long. He may have to go out and shovel snow to get his car out of the driveway. After a few days, the icy residue has melted away. I wouldn’t have made any money as a kid if I hadn’t had to regularly shovel snow off our neighbors’ sidewalks and driveways. It was steady work and reliable income, if you think a couple of dollars is regular income.
Summer storms have become exciting but dangerous. We’ve always had “storms,” but they have become record-breaking, time after time. Hurricane-force winds, tornadoes popping up in places that never had them, deluge-level rainfall causing flooding in places that have never flooded, and hailstones the size of a softball. The softballs used in women’s softball games, not the traditional 16” softball used in beer leagues around the Midwest. If hail was that big, body shops around the country would have a boom, ouch…again.
As I’m writing this, we have had a short break from the heat. Temperatures are no longer in the 80s at night, and during the day they are peaking in the high 70s or low 80s… wait, what’s this alert I just got on my phone? Possible hurricane or tropical depression heading toward Southern California. I thought hurricanes were meant for Florida. There’s flash flooding in the Grand Canyon, in the summer, which is in the middle of the Arizona Desert. Canada and Washington State are on fire, and the humidity out here has been terrible…ok, that may not have been that big of a deal, that is, if you don’t mind changing your sweaty shirt every hour.
We shouldn’t worry. Our government has a handle on it. They’re revitalizing the coal industry and allowing more oil drilling off our coast. They are also allowing businesses that donated to their election campaigns to clear-cut our national forests, scrap any clean energy production, and lift restrictions on emissions regulations…
For those that don’t realize it, that was an excellent demonstration of sarcasm. Need to go turn up the air conditioner so the electric company can make more money. See you in the bread line (more sarcasm).
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