If this is what hell feels like, I better get to church

If one more person says “the devil called, he wants his weather back,” I’m going to scream. And scream. Or maybe cry. As a person who loathes summer, this has been absolute torture for me. I don’t like heat. I don’t like sweat. I don’t like exposed feet. I don’t like exposed body parts, especially those that should under no circumstance be allowed to see the burning light of day. Please keep your jiggling bellies, cottage cheese thighs, and pimpled, hairy backs to yourself. I beg of you.

It’s so hot, I’ve no energy to write. The creative juices have dried up, leaving large cracks and dust where imagination used to reside in pools of ambition. It’s 104 with a heat index of 107. I have a strange, dull headache that has lingered at the base of my skull for a week. I’m buying Gatorade by the cart-loads and drinking so much water throughout the day I swear I can hear sloshing in my sleep. I know it’s hot when relief comes in the form of a floaty that resembles a large diaphragm. As long as it keeps me bobbing in warm pool waters, I don’t care if  it looks like birth control for Andre the Giant’s sister.

Just how hot is it? This is from the National Weather Service:

Wichita, Kan.

• 100-degree days through July 13: 20
• Sunday’s high reached an incredible 111 degrees. This was the hottest day since 1980!
• Annual average is 14 days with 100-degree heat.
• This is already a year’s worth of 100s, with the rest of July and August still ahead!
• Most 100-degree days in a year: 50 in 1936

Today is July 22, so add an additional nine days and we have 29 days of 100+ temperatures. Someone kill me now.

And the forecast is suicidal:

Good thing I don’t own any firearms.

As for sports, who can find any relief or relaxation watching baseball on television? The other day when Roy Halladay doubled over due to heat exhaustion, and it was a reported 112 heat index at Wrigley Field, I found no comfort in watching baseball. None. Who wants to see red-faced fans holding those pathetic plastic fans in front of their faces or players with water-soaked towels on their heads, or listen to the guys in the booth talk non-stop about the heat index and the humidity on the field?  Not me. I don’t want to be reminded of what’s just  outside my door. I knew I should’ve DVR’d the Winter X-games.

So until the temps cool to a mild 95, I won’t be doing much writing or anything else for that matter. And while I realize it is redundant, my new mantra is “It’s too damn hot.”  I’ll continue to drink too much water, keep my fridge stocked in Gatorade and keep the cooler filled with ice and beer (after all, it takes 8-24 gallons of water to brew that one pint of beer).

See you in 64 days. That would be the first day of fall.