One of the things I like most about Tennessee is the subtropical climate that produces 4 distinct seasons each year (although it seems like in this changing climate that summer is constantly encroaching on spring and fall). I like heat and humidity for a season, and I like cold and snow for a season. However, I think most of us can agree that we also have relatives we like for a season but when they visit for an extended stay we’re wishing they’d leave long before they actually do.
Every year, in the doldrums of winter, I swear that I’m not going to complain about the heat. And, then, in the dog days of summer, I swear that I’m not going to complain about the cold. Knowing danged full well that I’ll complain about both once they’ve worn out their welcome.
There are some weirdos who love winter and can’t wait for it (don’t worry, Nancy Duncan Chambers, I didn’t tell them it was you). There are other gluttons for punishment who love summer and don’t want it to end. Me, I like my weather to match my slightly schizophrenic personality — ADHD seasons. Here today, gone tomorrow.
Summer was fine in June. I had no problem with summer in June. June showed up with hot afternoons and late sunsets, and we were all happy to see it. June is when you’re still stupid enough to say “It feels good outside!” We sat beside swimming pools (that’s a lie, I no longer have a swimming pool and I’m happier for it because I no longer look out my front door on a day off and see a lime-green mosquito pond waiting for me to empty my wallet and spend my day making it sparkly again) and grilling hamburgers and going barefoot and all the other things you do in hot weather.
July was a little more aggressive. I suffered heat exhaustion and wound up passed out on the side of the road after a couple of days bush-hogging during that July 2-3 heatwave. But ya know what? That’s July’s job. You expect July to be hot. You complain about it, you crank down the AC another couple of degrees and prepare to shell out whatever money the pool store didn’t get to the electric company when next month’s bill comes due, and you move on with life.
But now it’s August. Summer has become that annoying uncle who was supposed to stay for a weekend and is still sleeping on the couch while the rest of the family gathers in a basement closet and conspires in soft whispers about ways to get rid of him.
It’s time for summer to go. I’m tired of walking outside and immediately needing to change my underwear. I’m tired of opening my car door and being greeted with a blast of hot air that’s normally reserved for crematoriums. I’m tired of potential third degree burns when I rest my right forearm on the center console. I’m tired of whatever that grass is that creeps up in late summer and refuses to be mowed evenly unless you make at least three swipes across it. I’m tired of chiggers that flock to your waistband like termites to a 2×4 if you even think about stepping into a forested environment.
Mostly, though, I’m tired of the humidity. I packed up my sound gear after the fair last night and felt like someone was dumping buckets of water on my head … but not cool, refreshing buckets; warm, sticky (and stinky) saline solution. Tennessee nights are supposed to be cool and refreshing, especially in the East Tennessee mountains where we don’t have low-lying heat islands like they do in Memphis. But at this point you can stand still at 10 p.m. and sweat. There’s something that is deeply offensive about sweating while making absolutely no physical effort.
I mowed grass today. Don’t judge me; the Bible says that he who sleeps in harvest is a son who causes shame. I didn’t even bother making two swipes over that friggin humidity grass, let alone three. It was too hot for that nonsense. My back yard looks a lot like my head now — random sprouts sticking up everywhere. Because my dermatologist told me after taking a pre-melanoma off my shoulder that I better get serious about skin protection, I mowed in a long-sleeved Costa shirt, a wide-brimmed hat, and long britches. Florida landscapers, I don’t know how y’all do it. I might as well have wrapped myself in Saran wrap and sat in a sauna. The first thing I did when I was finished (after changing my underwear) was to sit down and write out a living will.
I know there are people who are still enjoying this and don’t want it to end. I assume those same people also like root canals.
Me, I’m ready for this summer to go back to the pits of hell where it belongs. Give me a break! I’m not asking for frost or peak fall foliage. I just want 75 degrees and sub-70-degree dewpoints.
People do rain dances when it’s dry and snow dances when they want snow. I don’t know what the equivalent is of wishing on fall, but if it means spraying pumpkin spice on my pulse points, I’m game.
And, listen, I get it. My grandpa used to tell me “if you complain about the weather you’re complaining about the One who sends it,” just like y’all’s grandfathers told you. I know that somewhere around mid January, it’ll be 10 degrees, the wind will be howling, and I’ll be outside at 7 a.m. scraping ice off the windshield with an expired Food City Value Card because I can’t find the ice scraper. And I’ll gripe about that too, and the whole stupid cycle will start over again.
That’s because human beings are idiots.
We spend January begging for July and July begging for January, apparently incapable of remembering that both of them suck.
But that’s a problem for the future. In the present, we’re all sweaty, we’re all just a little pissed off (some more than others), and we’re all tired of seeing “Feels Like: 99°” on our phones.
I know it’ll get here eventually. Maybe. Hopefully. The humidity will abate. The chiggers will start their long journey back to whatever corner of Satan’s basement they crawled out of. The air conditioner will actually shut off for a minute.
In the meantime, I’ll be in here changing my underwear again.
