Hot House Pansies

For you folks on the East coast I know it has been miserably hot over the last week and sadly there is no end in sight. Even here in the Midwest, it has been no picnic either. Though the temps are lower, our 80% humidity makes it feel like somebody forgot to turn on the bathroom fan after a hot shower.

With that said however, does anyone remember what our folks and grandparents used to do when it got unbearably hot? Well, they didn’t do MUCH different from their normal routine actually. Their general attitude was ‘Yes it gets hot and cold sometimes – deal with it already you pansies’! Somewhere over the last 30 years or so, people have become so averse to REAL life and experience, they are actually starting to cripple themselves with constant needs.

Honestly, I don’t want to magically transform my house and car back 50 years ago when air conditioning was a genuine luxury. In the 40’s, 50’s and early 60’s it was not unusual for large department stores to not even have air conditioning. Patrons of buses, cabs, and if you were lucky enough to have ‘em, streetcars would never have expected conditioned air. People then were just happy to have a ride and if they were really lucky, somebody next to you that actually USED that new fangled stuff called deodorant.

The point is, it’s hot – I get it, so take ADVANTAGE of it. Remember when you were kids and there were no fancy themed water slide centers with $20 fees JUST FOR PARKING. What did you do – you put a sprinkler on a hose and ran through it for hours on end. You got some water balloons and chucked them at your friends. You had a picnic in the shade of a big tree or lay in a hammock and you’d SWEAT. But you know what, that was ok because you had all that you really needed - and it wasn’t much.

So to those heat-wave wimps out there, I figure there are better than a hundred thirty thousand troops tromping around overseas in all forms of purgatory’s best weather. With 60 pounds of gear hung on them and nary an ice cube in sight, those soldiers sincerely ‘feel our pain’. Wow, I suddenly feel empowered and thirsty? Let’s go outside and raise a glass of ice-cold sun tea in honor of our new found independence from neediness. On second thought, you go . . . I’ll be fine here in front of the fan with a pitcher, along side the rest of the ‘hot house’ pansies!