I Hades Hot Days

I'm up on my soapbox again, hoping for some sort of nice breeze up here, to decry the very need for summer. Just four short months ago, Heaven saw fit to send us not one, but two very nice-sized blizzards, and what we did do? We let all that wonderful snow - nature's air conditioner - melt away, like fools. Gone.

And for everyone (count me in) who said that at least the grass would stay nice and green this summer because of all the snow and rainwater that seeped in, look how wrong we can be!

I had to go out at lunch the other day, and stepping out of the building into the infernal midday heat was another good reminder why I am trying to lead some sort of good life, so as to avoid spending an eternity in a hot climate. My eyebrows were at once singed by the unrelenting blast furnace known as the sun, which at this time of year in Baltimore is approximately 20 feet above the surface of the earth, and often scrapes buildings of more than three stories as we rotate. All around me, fellow noontime adventurers were falling to the street and were unable to get up, because their gabardine garments were sticking to the molten tar bubbling off the parking lot. From time to time, a low moan would escape someone's lips. Overheated cars were pulled off to the side of the road, spouting steam like Old Faithful as the few cars that were able to keep running whizzed by silently. To stop would mean getting stuck in the same bubbling road surface that had the fallen pedestrians looking like flies on a honeybun...unable to move, and tired of where they were. An enterprising vendor pedaled by on a pedicab, offering to hose down those still upright with either icy water or sun block for a dollar..not a bad deal, since those out in the sun for over five minutes were heading to the nearest Walgreens for Solarcaine.

I decided I didn't really need a cup of coffee that badly, so I dove back in to the air-conditioned office.