Column: The ABCs of getting through a hot summer
So, here we go – the ABCs of a sizzling Columbia summer, brought to you by this past Tuesday, the hottest day of the season so far.
A is for AWFUL. “Awful hot, ain’t it?” said the man pumping gas next to me at a convenience store. “Yep,” I replied, running 7 cents over the $20 amount I’d already paid for in cash inside the shop.
B is for the BIG Gulp I considered getting when I went back in the store to settle up. BUT instead, B is for the three BAGS of groceries I paid for and then left in the BUGGY at the No. 3 check-out line at the BLYTHEWOOD Food Lion because I was not thinking clearly and just walked off without my purchases. Chalk it up to a middle-aged BRAIN addled by an astronomical heat index.
C is for any expanse of blazing white CONCRETE that must be traversed in this kind of weather. The sunlight bouncing off of it is blinding; the heat will flat make you think you have fire under your feet. Same goes for black asphalt or beach sand, especially if you’re barefooted.
D is for feeling DELIRIOUS at the very thought of doing anything outside, especially yard work. D is also for DERANGED if you decide to do it anyway.
E is for the ENTHUSIASM you had several months ago when you purchased, potted and planted lots and lots of flowers which now require copious amounts of ENERGY and EFFORT to keep alive. E is also for the slight ENVY you feel for people who have tire planters filled with plastic flowers in their front yards. Do you see them sweating in the heat? Heck no. Do you see them fooling around with one of those sprinklers that waves back and forth and requires ENDLESS amounts of adjusting to get just right? No, you don’t.
F, then, is for that guilty FEELING you have that maybe it wouldn’t be so bad to just give it all up, let it all go, and never return to the gardening center in the springtime when you are feeling FOOLISHLY upbeat about this business of growing things in the Columbia summertime. F is also for FIGURING out what you’re going to say to the Somewhat Anal Neighborhood Standards Association when a nasty little note is left in your mailbox saying your tire planter is not up to snuff.
G is for GETTING behind one of those GREAT big county trash trucks and GETTING a real icky feeling looking at all that GROTESQUE GOOP sliding down the backend of it. If there is a somewhat mangled bag of something stuck in the crushing mechanism and leaking GREENISH GOO, well, all the more disGUSTING.
H is wondering HOW in the world the guys who work on those trucks can stand it in all this HEAT. (My HAT’S off to whoever they are.)
I is for the IDIOT balling up four lanes of rush-hour traffic by trying to get from the far right lane to the far left at the last minute. INCIDENTLY, he is talking on his iPHONE while attempting this.
J is for JUST letting the loser in line so everyone can JUST get home.
K is for how KIND you thought it was to let the looser in line until he does not thank you with a courtesy wave in his rear view mirror at which point you think, “I won’t scream, I’ll just ram the back end of his Beamer and call Akim!”
L is for LETTING yourself into your house where a wall of blessed air conditioning hits you in the face and you feel like you have never LOVED being home so much.
M is for the MISERABLE weather forecast on the evening news which includes shades of pink and red stretched across the state, three-digit highs, depressingly warm lows and a little row of seven round yellow suns.
N is for NO way this heat can last much longer.
O is for OH yes it can!
P is for thinking about the POSSIBILITY of moving up north to some surely cooler PLACE like PUPOSKY, Minn.
Q is for…well, QUITE frankly it is too frigging hot to figure out what Q is for except that Columbia is bound to QUALIFY for the hottest place on Earth.
R is for hoping to soon REACH the end of this column because the temperature continues to RISE and the writer is RUNNING out of things to say.
S is for SEPTEMBER. SURELY things will cool off by SEPTEMBER.
T is for TAKING it easy until then.
U is for looking at the wilted impatiens in pots on the front porch and just saying UGH.
V is for the VAGUE feeling that fall will come one day.
W is for WONDERING about a few things that have nothing to do with the heat. For instance, why do they call that pink bus that runs around Columbia the Comet? Comets go fast; buses so slow. Furthermore, WHAT is the deal with those homemade signs stuck in the ground of busy intersections saying a queen-size mattress is for sale? And while we’re at it, has anyone noticed a big billboard on 1-77, near the Shop Road exit, which says, simply, “U.S. National WHITEWATER Center.” No directions, no nothing. WEIRD.
Now X is for XERUS, a coarse-haired, long-tailed African ground squirrel which has migrated to Columbia and which digs a deep hole in the summertime and does not come out until temperatures return to normal. (Well, some of that is true, but still, XERUS might be a real good word to know if you’re playing Scrabble because it’s too darn hot to do anything else.)
Y is for YAHOO, this column has almost ended!
Z is for before you know it, it’ll feel like ZERO degrees on a freezing-cold, rainy winter day and seven gray clouds will line up in a little row on the weather report and you’ll be wondering if summer will ever, ever come again.
Salley McInerney is a writer whose novel, Journey Proud, is based upon growing up in Columbia in the early 1960s. Ms. McInerney may be reached by emailing salley@hartcom.net.
This story was originally published July 23, 2015 at 11:15 AM.