A Glorious Summer Day…Not
I hate the heat. More specifically, the humidity. Today is 90 degrees and about as humid as you can get. Blistering heat. Nauseating heat. Pick your adjective and it fits.
So I’m trying my best to ignore this scorching, miserable heat, sweat dripping down my body in buckets, reading glasses slipping off my nose, when my husband enters the sunroom modeling swim trunks he’s had since the Regan administration.
“Wanna go swimming?” he says.
“Umm…you going like that?”
“Yeah. Why? You don’t like this suit?”
My gaze sidles. “Where would we go?”
We live in a vacationer’s paradise. Each week Newfound Lake gives itself a blood transfusion with seven underground springs. Which makes it perfect swimming water. Hence, why our area floods with people in the warm weather.
“I dunno. The lake?” he says.
Now I’m envisioning being on the beach with hundreds of people, each having a towel-width of space. Men wearing black knee socks and sandals. Don’t laugh. It happens more than you’d think around here. But I’m gazing into Bob’s eyes and I can’t crush his eager spirit. “The lake?” Involuntarily my upper lip twitches. “Haven’t you found a private inlet somewhere yet?”
He hangs his head. “No.”
“I would, but I don’t have a suit. I haven’t bought one since we moved here.” I probably have one somewhere, but if I’m going out in public I’ll be damned if I’m going in a suit from the 90’s.
“Isn’t that a bathing suit top?”
Men. “No. It’s a sports bra. Big difference.”
“No one’s gonna know. C’mon. It’ll be fun.”
This, I didn’t need. I’m sweating– No. My mother always said: horse’s sweat, men perspire, women glow. So, I’m glowing like a firefly in July, a puddle of glow? under my chair and my husband wants me to slap on a happy face and parade down the beach in my sports bra and shorts. Help me, Jesus!
A ball skids across the room and our dog cries, breaking Bob’s concentration and reverting his attention away from the lake idea.
For once my dog does me a favor. Normally, he’s a jerk. I don’t often admit this, but it’s true. I had seven–count ’em, seven!–sweet, loving babies and him…the troublemaker. Guess who’s still with us? The one who allows us to pet him–when HE feels like it. Who doesn’t like company. Who refuses to share the fan. And to top it off, he now suffers from separation anxiety. If he is more than three feet away he cries until we move closer. Because God forbid HE move. Not in this lifetime. He’s a playful boy, too, for nine years old. One his favorite activities is bouncing a ball–off my face. He rolls it down my leg, over my arms, across my keyboard. Because I’m not paying attention to him.
Yeah. You know the kind. If he were human he’d be the bully in school. Yup, that’s my kid…the jerk. Still, we love him with all our hearts, buy him anything his little–and I mean little–heart desires. For instance, because of the heat Bob brought him home Frosty Paws. He devoured it in seconds, glanced over his shoulder and threw us the stink eye. “You gonna put another one in here, or do I have to beg? Bitches.”
Between the swimsuit auditions, the ball bashing me in the face, and the heat, I needed a few moments of peace. I decided to take a shower. You know, cool off a bit. I just get my hair shampooed and…CRACK. Lightning shakes the house.
Oh, great. Now I’m gonna die…in the shower no less. Then something else occurs to me. If I do die, would Bob release my trunk novels? I tiptoe in between the drops, praying to God that a lightening bolt doesn’t shoot out of the faucet and strike me dead before I have a chance to tell Bob, “Under no circumstances are those books to be released. Ever!”
After that relaxing time away, I rejoin my family. It’s getting late now so the lake is off the table…for today. I get back to work on my latest manuscript that I’m tearing to shreds and Bob wants to chitchat. About nothing. Just ramble on and on and on and on. It is Sunday, after all, so I stop what I’m doing and smile. “Uh-ha. Wow. Really?” I have no idea what I’m saying, but it’s going over well so I must be close.
He strolls into the kitchen, presumably to go upstairs and change out of that suit he’s owned since Moby Dick was a guppy. “Oh…my…God!” he says. “What IS that?”
Now, he has my full attention. “What is it?”
“I don’t know. It’s a…a…I don’t know. It’s big, though.” He gives the hardwood the lightest tap I’ve ever heard. Like his big toe barely swept over the floor.
Now, if I saw something as gigantic as he made it out to be, you can be sure I’d be stomping my foot. But no.
Tap.
“That’s it? Tap? How big could it be if all you’re going to do is…tap?”
“What? I got it.”
“Well, what was it?”
“A bumble bee…I think.”
“And a tap like that killed it? A bumble bee. Come on.”
“Seriously.”
“Then it obviously wasn’t that big. Men, always making things out to be larger than they really are. Typical.”
“I’ll prove it.” He swipes a paper towel and marches into the living room. Gently scoops it up and carries it over. “Actually, it’s a spider. Wow. It’s got big sacks of babies on its back too. This thing’s enormous.”
“A spider? The size of bumble bee?”
“Yeah. It’s huge. Look.” He unfurls the towel, and I peer over his shoulder expecting to witness a grotesque spider.
Drama queen.
I sigh, and open the fridge. “What do you want for supper?”
“Whatever. I’m easy.”
“How about ice cream?”
“For supper?”
“Yeah, Mr. Easy. That a problem?”
He ignores me.
“Fine. I’ll throw a steak on the grill.” Forgetting that we’re expecting torrential thunderstorms any second and have already been experiencing lightening galore.
I throw the steak on the grill and…CRACK. Within seconds, sheets of rain fall from the sky. The electricity flickers. Goes out. Flickers.
I’m not wasting twenty bucks worth of steaks, so if you don’t hear from me again you’ll know why. I’m face-up on my deck, dead or in a coma, holding a metal grill fork with long, dark scorch marks running up and down my body.
I hate the heat.
27 Comments
Brendon La Lure
Creased here!
Heh heh….
Sue Coletta
LOL And now you’ve learned something else about me…I hate the heat. 🙂
Kev
I enjoyed this… few good chuckles. 😉
Sue Coletta
I’m so glad, Kev. It was a hellish day; the heat fried my brain. Proof that I wouldn’t do well in, say, Florida.
Kev
😀
billyraychitwood1
Very amusing post! 🙂
Sue Coletta
Thanks, Billy. The heat makes me a bit looney…clearly.
Nicholas C. Rossis
Lol – brilliant 😀
Sounds like your dog is possessed by a cat’s spirit 🙂
I think you need to make friends with the people down the street (you know, the ones with the pool)
Sue Coletta
Maybe we could fake a call or something to lure them away from the house instead. 🙂
Nicholas C. Rossis
“Is that the queen mother running naked down the road? Come, quick!”
Sue Coletta
Hahaha! I’ll have to use the language of the area. Something like, “Look, free firewood for the first person to catch that billy goat running down the street.”
Nicholas C. Rossis
Oh, my! That sounds positively rustic 😀
Sue Coletta
You can’t even imagine. It’s beautiful, peaceful, but I wouldn’t dare utter the word “hillbilly” in public. For instance, my neighbor suggested a good use for my old silverware was to flatten the forks and spoons and hang them outside as a wind chime.
I stared in disbelief.
Nicholas C. Rossis
Lol – “thou shall not covet thy neighbor’s silverware wind chime” 😀
Sue Coletta
Hahaha!
FictionFan
Brilliant! Thanks for making me laugh! And your dog sounds somewhat similar to my cats – they really haven’t got a handle on this who-owns-who thing… or maybe we haven’t!
Sue Coletta
That’s the biggest understatement since Clinton said, “I did not have sex with that woman.” LOL My dog won’t even move for water. He throws me the eye. “Get it NOW.” And I do!
coldhandboyack
Hilarious post. Don’t release the trunk novels! I love it.
Sue Coletta
Surprise, surprise, we get to do it all over again today. Hot and humid. Someone shoot me! BTW, you were right. Blogging is therapeutic. Thanks for the tip. I just need to make sure my dog isn’t peering over my shoulder or I’m a dead woman.
coldhandboyack
Block his internet access too.
Sue Coletta
Do you think they have a dog block like they do for kids? Hmm…I’ll have to look into that.
Mae Clair
I know you’re having a crazy upside down day, but it was highly entertaining relayed in a post, LOL. We’ve got the same heat here….low 90s and humid beyond belief. I spend three hours in the pool (we’ve got one in the backyard) and am thinking about getting in again this evening. I’ll take summer over winter any day, but when it’s this hot it’s miserable.
We had your electrical storms last night, but with this weather, could be another tonight. BTW, your dog sounds like one smart (and lovably spoiled) animal! 🙂
Sue Coletta
A pool?! Oh, what I would give to dip one toe. Just one toe. I’ve been eyeing a pool down the street. The question yesterday became: Could we get in and out before anyone noticing?
Oh, yeah, he’s spoiled beyond belief. I have enough material from his antics alone to fill two blogs. We call him our “big, furry problem”, but I think he’s catching on…need to tread very carefully. 😉
Garry Rodgers
Great Post! God, I can just see Bob standing there in a Speedo 🙂 Hope the poor guy got his steak.
Sue Coletta
Not a Speedo. I would have slapped him silly. 😉 He did get his steak. A sopping wet steak. Puddles forming at my feet, sloshing in my slippers, I held a tight smile and slapped the steak on a plate with salad and dropped it in front of him. “Enjoy. I could have died making you that steak.”
Margot Kinberg
Oh, what a day!! There is something about the heat that can just drive you crazy, isn’t there? Well, at least your dog did you a good turn; maybe it’s to make up for his other – erm – transgressions?
Can I just say, too, that you told this story absolutely beautifully! Wit, pacing, the whole thing. I was drawn in and stayed there.
Sue Coletta
Thank you, Margot. I felt so much better afterwards, too. Who knew blogging could be so therapeutic? 😀