F- the Heat

     Back in January and February, when every week brought another snowstorm not of inches but feet, many New Englanders daydreamed of warm summer days minus the back breaking labor of shoveling.  We threatened to punch the first person who complained about the heat in the throat.  The delirium of opening heating bills where the numbers rivaled our student loan payments had driven us a wee bit crazy.  But the truth of the matter is that we were thinking about a specific kind of warm - maybe upper 70's, low 80's, no humidity ... nice enough to not need a jacket.  None of us were thinking about what late July and August are really like here, days of upper 80's, low 90's heat combined with 70% humidity.  Nobody was thinking about sweating while they were on the toilet.
     I know that many of my dear friends in other parts of the country/world who are reading this right now are laughing their asses off.  Heat and humidity they are saying, you don't know heat until you've been in Atlanta in August.  True, and having lived in Texas for a time, I know that it's much worse almost everywhere else.  But we are not a heat & humidity people here, sure there's always a couple among the bunch that revel in it, are almost giddy in fact, but the vast majority of us are really, really cranky right now.  We can't sleep well, everything's pissing us off, and to top it off, if you start bitching about it one of your friends is going to remind you about 25 feet of snow and your throat punching comments.  It's a no win situation, because complaining is something New Englanders do very well.  It's a skill passed down through sporting team bumper stickers and extra large cups of Dunkin Donuts coffee.  If we can't complain, we are incomplete as a people.
     I like to tell people the snow may have been horrible, but I can always put more clothes on.  Meanwhile, I can only get just so naked in polite company.  As it is, I have to announce my nakedness in my own home so I don't frighten the teenagers.  "NAKED MAMA COMING THROUGH," I yell, so no one comes out of their room to be greeted by nightmare fodder.  Not because I'm scary naked, (trust me, I'm not ... no seriously), but seeing your mother sans clothes stays with you for a long time.  Of course, it would give them something to complain about.