Beating the Heat, Beating it with a Stick Until it Stops Moving
I can’t stand it when it’s hot. I hate it. I get irritable, weak, headachy, swampy and dumb. Ironically, I was born and raised in L.A. (not exactly one of the chilliest parts of the world), but I’m half English and half Russian body-wise. Genes definitely trump “where you grew up.” Toss a penguin egg into the Sahara desert and tell me it’s not going to have problems for the rest of its life.
Add to this the fact that my dad gave me sweat glands that seem to piss sweat if someone just waves a glow stick at me. So, I wondered when I had kids if they’d be the same. As it turned out, they sure do sweat like me but luckily don’t seem to have my hatred for high heat and its debilitating effect. Yet.
When it’s really bad, the sun seems like an evil, fiery eye, like the inescapable eye of Sauron in the Lord of the Rings.
Water, a/c, electrolytes, supplements, none of them seem to save me from my fate. It’s bad. If I was Frodo, bearing the Ring across Middle Earth, it would not have gone well. The moment that I made it to the dry, hot desert wasteland of Mordor, I would have killed Sam and covered myself in his blood to cool off. Yeah, that bad.
For all of you heat lovers, yes, I would rather have extreme cold. Your stories of spending three hours trying to detach a necktie frozen to a windshield or something will only make me sigh longingly. Look, you can always put on more clothes, but you can only get so naked. And covering your body in Vicks VapoRub is oily and gross. And you can only get so oily, gross and naked before you make a serious mess or get arrested. Or both.
But I discovered there are other things one can do to beat the heat…
The Beginning
One day, Lizzie shouts to me from the kitchen, “What is this!?!” She comes into the living room holding a bulging Ziplock baggie away from her as if it was a stranger’s previously-owned snot rag. Seeing what she was holding and remembering what it was, I said, “Oh, yeah! I forgot!” and explained. A few days before, when it was punishingly hot, I had wet my socks, bagged ’em and threw them in the freezer. Her expression remained a frown of disturbed confusion. I asked her if she could pretty please put them back. And I then proceeded to forget about them again.
…Two Weeks Later, The Re-Beginning
Again Lizzie called to me from the kitchen, this time threatening to throw them away. Reminded of my experimental remedy, I leapt up from my own puddle of sweat and raced to the kitchen in excitement. She looked slightly concerned when I took them from her, but I continued on and just ignored the raised eyebrows and head shakes.
The Results
Br-r-r-r-r. Can an experiment be too much of a success? One tip if you should try this yourself: a little water goes a looooooong way. When moistening socks or whichever article of clothing you plan on freezing, think small squirt gun, not Galactic-grade super soaker. Otherwise, they’re hard to pry apart let alone put on.
I’m pretty sure my kids will grow up to dislike extreme heat, maybe not quite as bad as I do, but they can rest assured that I’ll be able give them some outside-the-box pointers. Even though they’ll probably look at me like Lizzie did, when I’m explaining.
maybe how to laugh hard enough to make pee pee squirts click here.
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