Dog Days

I don’t know where you live, but if it’s anywhere in America you might have noticed that it’s been hot as balls this week and I don’t want to hear that this is the result of global warming and we need to get used to it, because I’m telling you right now I am NOT going to get used to it. Especially that I am at an age when perspiration is showing up in areas other than my armpits and my brow, and don’t pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about. Younger women out there, take my word for it: enjoy wearing light colored bottoms in the summer months as long as you can. There’s a reason every woman you know over 45 always wears black. It’s because nobody has invented a mini, battery-operated fan that we can strap into our underpants. But as they’ve invented other battery-operated things that we can strap into our underpants, I’m confident that the Panty Fan can not be far off.

What makes living in an oven even more unbearable is the media frenzy over “Back to School,” and “Cozy Fall Fashions.”  Seriously this is not the time! I need a new, black bathing suit, and a pair of flip-flops that don’t get so soft in the hot sun that the front of them get caught under the bottoms when I walk and make me trip; not a cashmere sweater and a pair of boots. And I don’t want to buy anything for my kids for “Back to School” because I have not gotten sick of them yet! That includes books for “required summer reading,” which should be renamed “required Labor Day reading” because, let’s face it, that’s when they all do it anyway. I don’t want flyers from Target highlighting “everything your new college student needs” because everything my new college student needs is right here in this house, and Target is clearly trying to interfere with my major plan to convince Bianca that college is for losers and she should just enroll in the D.Parker School of Life.

The worst part of this push towards fall, is that it puts the pressure on to hurry up and enjoy the summer, it’s almost over! I live with people who are very susceptible to this scam. Maverick lives for the summer, and he dreads the end practically before it begins. I thought we dodged the bullet this year, by being out of the country on July 4th, the day he unofficially marks as the last day of summer. We were coasting along pretty well until he saw that first “Back to School” flyer. (Damn those flip-flops that kept me from getting to the mailbox before he did!) Anyway, it sent him into a panic and now he’s been hassling me to go to the beach everyday, preaching that “there won’t be too many more days like this!” and to that I say, at 105 degrees, I certainly hope not! But I refuse to succumb to all the hype about summer ending. I have barely finished unpacking from vacation! There is lots of summer left to enjoy! There has to be! And it’s not all about going to the beach, Maverick!

First of all, I have several summer outfits that I have yet to be seen in, and as I won’t be purchasing any of those new fall fashions (read: college tuition payments) I have to make the most of them. Especially the shoes. I have not seen a single firefly, or made a s’more, or even toasted a giant marshmallow. Did you know they make giant marshmallows? I think it’s something new.  But who can think about making a bonfire when you feel like there’s a bonfire in your pants? I haven’t yet gotten sunburned. I know what you’re thinking, “D. Parker, it’s unhealthy to get sunburned!” Yes, I know, but it’s a summer tradition for me because I like to keep my dermatologist on her toes.  I have not read a mindless, stupid book.  You know the kind labeled “beach read” because you don’t really have to pay attention to what your reading. It’s just a different version of the story you read on the beach last year: something to do with a woman and her best friends and a beach and a romance and maybe some good sex scenes. I refuse to let the only book I read this summer be that heavy one about the woman in that other country and the horrible thing she went through, especially because it was peppered with all those words in that foreign language and in the end it just made you depressed and intolerant of that other culture and all you wanted to do was just relax and read about the stupid woman with the fancy house on the beach.  I haven’t gotten to see all the chick flicks that are based on those books, and it’s not because I’ve been seeing “Bridesmaids” over and over. Most importantly, I am only halfway through the list of summer cocktails that were highlighted in the foodie magazines back in June, and it’s not because I’m paying attention to the new AMA guidelines that suggest three alcoholic drinks in one sitting is too many.   Who do they think they are, the drink police? Didn’t their mother’s teach them that if they can’t say anything nice, they shouldn’t say anything at all?  But I digress.

Clearly I have a lot of living to do, when the living is easy.  So please excuse me while I grab a  giant marshmallow and a magnifying glass and see if I can’t roast a marshmallow on the dashboard of my car before the cold front comes through and the temps drop below 100.