Suzy Says

Love/Hate for Friday, April 5, 2002

Heat

I hate being overheated. Hatehatehate. I especially hate sweating. In fact, I personally believe there’s only one good reason to sweat, and it ain’t exercise. At least, not in a gym.

When I lived on the east coast, I used to start dreading summer in February. The summers were hot, humid, and bug-filled. I’d start sweating just getting dressed in the morning, and when I stepped out the door to go to work, it was like a hot, wet blanket had been lifted out of the washer and draped over me. I never felt clean, or comfortable.

After one stifling summer too many, I started renting an air conditioner for the summer. It was an excEt arrangement. The appliance company would come out and install it in May or so, and then take it away again in October, and I didn’t have to come up with all the money to buy my own. And I was able to actually sleep on summer nights instead of tossing and turning with a sweaty sheet over me. Added bonus: the window was closed so the bugs had to stay in their own homes. If you do have to live in a climate which treats you like a TV dinner, going from the deep freeze to the oven, invest in air conditioning, either rent it or buy it. You’ll wonder how you ever did without it.

But when it’s too hot, you can be completely naked and still be too hot, and completely miserable. And it’s very unusual to be naked in most areas of daily life, so even if being naked did help, it wouldn’t make much difference. Your hair will either frizz out or go completely flat, depending on its nature. Your hands and feet will swell with indignation at being forced to endure such absurd extremes of temperature. You’ll sweat everywhere, making you damp, uncomfortable, and eventually, with the addition of oxygen, stinky. Your make-up will slide off your face as if by magic, since your face will be oily and sweaty, and it will begin to sprout zits, no matter what your age.

So is it all that surprising that people go crazy during heat waves and start killing their fellow man or other acts of violence? According to this article in the Guardian, the murder rate in New York City jumped by 75% during the heat wave of 1988, and all of England’s major riots have occurred in the summer. You don’t hear of people going nuts during a cold snap, or at least, if they do, it’s not because of the weather.