It’s Too Hot

6 months ago, I was told it might snow. Now I hear it’s too hot.

In case your skin and sweat glands aren’t working properly, the temperature outside is steadily rising. If I take the average of the temperatures I’ve heard on the radio, seen on the TV, and read on the internet, it is roughly 132 degrees Fahrenheit today.

It is undecided whether this weather is a freak heat wave, the aftermath of a solar flare, some unproven side effect of global warming, or just a normal Summer day. Records are being broken, thermometers are rapidly exploding into showers of mercury, and human spontaneous combustion is imminent. You should probably wear shorts.

I am sympathetic to those who continually note how hot it has gotten, seeing that it never really gets hot around here. It is very hard to acclimatize to extreme heat when you’ve never been so hot in your entire life. Some advice for the ill-prepared: buy one of those fans with a misting bottle attached to it, they are awesome.

Make sure to complain about the heat, even when it is very obvious that others around you are painfully aware of said heat. Ask anyone you see, who you know was recently outside, if it was “hot enough for them”; this kind of humor is classic and timeless, and may help distract people from the heat. Complain that you’re too hot in your clothes, and comically suggest that your boss allow office nakedness in response to the heat. Awkwardly glance at an attractive coworker as you make this suggestion.

Do your best to avoid moving. Remind those you see that you got excessively sweaty just walking the 30 feet from your car to the office door. Point to the sweat marks near your armpits as proof. Give people plenty of warning that they too might suffer a fate worse than sweat if they brave the scolding climate.

Always remember that heat is dangerous, so avoid going outside if at all possible. Tell your friends that you’ll wait for it to “cool off” before you leave the house. Never be satisfied that it has “cooled off” enough; you don’t want to risk dehydration and hyperthermia just to be social.

If you must go outside, take proper precaution. Spray yourself with half a gallon of perfume/cologne to mask the BO that will inevitably creep up after a long sweat session. Grab either side of your shirt and wave it back and forth to fan refreshing air across your overheating gut. Whenever you can, hike up your pants to cool off your legs. Don’t worry about your disgusting, sweaty leg hair or the alabaster sheen of your shins and thighs; no one will judge you since it is so hot outside.

Make sure you drink plenty of fluids. Beer is a great choice as it contains water, electrolytes, and alcohol. If you feel woozy, you’re probably just drunk (and definitely not experiencing the onset of heat exhaustion). If you have to perform any labor, make sure it is very intense to avoid prolonged heat exposure; better to frantically squeeze all of the work into an exhausting 15 minutes than stretch it across 4 hours. Less is more…or more is less…I ’m not sure; my brain is fried from the heat.

If you notice the heat, the best thing you can do is tell others about it, as they may have lived in Antarctica their entire lives, and may not recognize this phenomenon as “heat”. Some people may have teleported to work, and will appreciate you telling them the weather, as they didn’t have to go outside during their instantaneous commute.

If others in your social networks claim they have it worse, tell them that they are closing schools due to the heat. If the kids are in danger from the heat, it’s clearly too hot. You can also remind them how hot the Metro gets (and sucks!), and how slow people drive when their tires are literally melting onto the roadway. Double points if you point out how humid it is and how that humidity clearly makes our heat worse than “dry heat”.

(The Desert Shadow Dogs come out when it gets this hot. They scour the barren, burned landscape searching for collapsed, dehydration/alcohol poisoning victims. You have been warned. )

Be sure to appreciate how hot it is, because before you know it, you’ll be complaining about how cold it is. Hell, it might even get cold enough to snow this winter.