Directly From The Face Of The Sun

Hi kids; ABIB here. Yo, now that it's summer you might find yourself thinking, "Hey...I wonder what it's like on the face of the sun?" Well, I have the answer for you kiddos: Baltimore in July! Yes this post is coming to you directly from the fucking face of Old Sol himself, brought to earth for your sweltering pleasure and located directly WHERE I LIVE! Hateful motherfucking summer weather; the bane of my existence from roughly May until whenever global warming decides to release us from its gaping hellish maw. Round these parts that would generally be October at the very earliest. I hate to sweat, I hate the wall-to-wall, smothering humidity, I hate how everyone's tongue clicks when they're talking because they're constantly suffering from heat-induced dry mouth. Did I mention that I hate to sweat?
It reached a zenith here last week when we accrued the - what - 15th, 20th, 5,000th straight day of 90+ degrees? Yes, it topped out one day at a balmy 104 degrees. Combined with the 57% humidity it made every step outdoors akin to slogging your way through hot oatmeal. Even CNN reported on the heatwave plaguing the East Coast and darned if Baltimore wasn't ALWAYS the hottest temperature on the map from Maine to Florida. Also, weather people: STOP BEING SO FUCKING CHEERFUL ABOUT THE WEATHER!! "Hey folks, looks like another scorcher out there today with no real end in sight! Slather up on the SPF 50, grab some water bottles and head to the pool!" Um, what FUCKING POOL?! Don't most of us WORK for a living? So I'm reduced to dashing (except you can't dash in 104 degrees without seriously courting heatstroke) from one air-conditioned reality to the next. Car to work to car to house. Don't be so crabby, ABIB, at least you HAVE air conditioning. To that I say: hey, mofo, it's 2010, if you STILL don't have ready access to air conditioning why not hitch up that horse and buggy and get the fuck back to the 19th century? Folks, the heat brings out the worst in me and as you surely know by now, the BEST of me is pretty dicey.
I had to deviate from the car to work to car to house pattern last Thursday and let me tell you, it was not a pretty picture. Errands should be banned when the temperature rises above 85. But an errand I had so before I could escape into the no-shades-open-72-degree interior of my house (yes I keep it at 72 degrees and it's well worth the privations needed to achieve that blessed inside temperature - who needs food?) I had to make a stop at the local Walgreens.
Out of car - FULL BODY HOT OATMEAL SLAM: FUCK ITS HOT - into the Walgreens - where the PA system was positively BLASTING some random CD of oldies but at least it was cool in there. Got in line with - Christ Almighty - other people. Other people who have been outside in the boiling Sargasso Sea of weather called Baltimore in July and, well, to put it delicately: MANY OF THEM STUNK!!!
The ABIB prides herself on her pristine personal hygiene habits and is sadly often let down by the not-so-pristine personal hygiene habits of others. Which is why I try, as much as possible, to avoid public places once the temps hit, oh, about 80. Blasting muzak, the accursed dry-mouth, a line wait (which is hellish for the ABIB in the BEST of circumstances) and fellow sweating, odorous line waiters. As you can probably guess it didn't go well. By the time I was done with my errand I had reached the threshhold where being even remotely pleasant was a distant memory. A very distant memory. Paid up, gathered my stuff, pushed past the line of olfactory miscreants waiting behind me (FOLKS: IT'S CALLED DEODORANT! USE IT!) and exited the building. WHAM! Back into the muggy, hot wall of hideousness that is Ol' Sol's loving breath, into my now reheated car, whose AC will not have the oommph to blow cool enough to matter before I get home. The next person who cheerily states: "Well at least it's not SNOWING!" Is going to get a karate chop to the solar plexus.
Yes, folks, it's the ABIB in mid-July, cheerless and resentful as ever, posting from the face of the sun, aka Baltimore, MD.