A letter to Summer, on a hot muggy day…

Dear Summer,

You suck SO bad! You can’t be happy with just heat…NO! You have to toss in humidity too!

What little breeze there is just stirs the hot air around.

The breeze isn’t even enough to keep the bugs away. If a person were to dare go sit in the shade during the day, the horse/deer/moose flies will rip gigantic chunks out of them.

If a person decides to wait for the relatively cooler evening temperatures, the mosquitoes will swarm around them, lift them off the ground, and deposit their bloodless bodies miles away from where they began.

Why can’t you be satisfied with day time temperatures of 70 degrees? Maybe 75 if you really wanna crank things up?

And if you INSIST on day time temps in the 80’s or higher, can’t you be decent and give us nice cool 40 degree temps over night? You know…so a person can at least get a good night’s sleep without running the air conditioner?

All I am asking is for is that you be a little more reasonable.

Every drop of fluid I drink is instantly sweated out.

I take a cool shower, and mere minutes later I am sweating like a farm animal.

My poor little air conditioner simply can not keep up with the demand I place on it trying to get comfortable.

Winter doesn’t play these games! When it gets cold, all a person has to do is turn on the heater, and they will get warm.

If the cold air manages to find some cracks to slip through and create a draft, they can still put on an extra pair of socks, or a sweater, and they will soon be comfortably snug!

A person can even bundle up and go outside in the winter and enjoy the day without being terribly uncomfortable!

Believe me, Summer, a person can’t simply strip naked to escape your heat… And not just because it is against the law to go shopping without any clothes on either!

Trust me! I live in the woods, and I go outside naked all the time…Hot is still hot no matter HOW naked you get! And let’s not forget the blood thirsty horde that likes your Hellish heat!

Why do you treat us this way Summer??? Why can’t you be reasonably warm like Spring and Autumn?

You have the potential to be an AMAZING season if you could just ease up on the heat a bit!

You have long sunny days, full of birds, and flowers, and blue skies with big fluffy clouds.

Your evenings come alive with the smell of backyard barbecues, and the sounds children running through sprinklers, riding bikes, or playing games.

Your sunrises and sunsets fill the sky with hues of red, yellow, orange, pink and blue mixed into impossible combinations on the giant canvas that is the sky.

Yet with all these wonderful things you have to offer, you have to insist on high heat, high humidity, and blood thirsty insects!

SHAME ON YOU SUMMER! SHAME!

When Winter comes knocking on the door, and forces its way in with the cold temperatures it promises, ushering in Autumn to prepare us, I shall rejoice!

I shall celebrate in the warm sunshine, and cool breezes!

I shall not mourn your passing!

Even as the bitter cold winds scream in January I will smile as I sip hot coffee knowing I shall always be warm enough, but never too hot…

Never be too hot that is until you force your way back in come Spring time…

And then?

Then I SHALL CURSE YOU AS I AM NOW!

I shall tell everybody who will listen just how much I HATE YOU!

Love,
Doug.

Doug Alley

About Doug Alley

I grew up in Bath, Maine in an upper lower class family with 3 step sisters, a step brother, and a little sister. After high school I spent 3 years serving in the USAF at Elmendorf AFB in Anchorage AK. I've competed in, and won, demolition derbies. I've competed in, and never won, stock car races. I am the 47-year-old father of an 11-year-old boy who is pretty sure he is smarter than I ever was. We live on a little less than an acre of land in a 1973 mobile home in Stetson with my wife Jen, some cats, a few chickens, and rabbits, and a couple of goats. I hunt, fish, camp out, dabble in photography, gardening, and I cook in variable degrees of near success.