Ammo Grrrll is talking about the weather in SHUT-INS IN HECK. She writes:
A severely-disappointing real conversation in a Dusty Little Village in southern Arizona:
“Whew! It’s only going to be 93 Degrees F. today! Thank God!
“Honey, see? You’re looking at the LOW.”
Once an Arizona summer, I give myself permission to write about the weather. It’s not controversial, it’s not time-based and everyone who has ever asked “Hot enough for ya?” or “Cold enough for ya?” can participate.
Even those who falsely claim, “It’s not the heat, it’s the humidity” can play along! In Arizona from mid-May to mid-September it’s DEFINITELY the heat. Once when our air conditioner went on the fritz, it was 112 INSIDE the house. Outside it was 123. The worst part of it was that I could no longer refer to The Squad as having “room temperature” IQs. Unless you were talking about in the aggregate. Adding in The View.
Your first Arizona summer you are surprised to learn the hard way that not only is the OUTSIDE of the metal security screen door untouchable in the blazing ruthless sun, but the INSIDE door handle is quite toasty as well. Metal is a CONDUCTOR – who knew? At least once a summer the local newsheads will run a delightful story about that lady in Surprise, Arizona who bakes bread in her mailbox.
People trying to put lipstick on the proverbial pig will say, “Yeah, but you don’t have to shovel heat”! While technically true, it’s also true that there is no phrase “cold stroke.”
My maternal Grandma was born in the blizzard of 1888, more than two decades after the Civil War. I threw that in to say in re: reparations and slavery, NOT GUILTY. We didn’t do it. Pound sand, potential grifters. But I digress from the weather and I had a point.
Grandma was a twin. She and my great-aunt were the eighth and ninth children in that pioneer family in rural South Dakota. My bad. ALL of South Dakota is “rural.” When Grandma was a little girl in country school, a fierce late-spring blizzard came up. Grandma said you couldn’t see two feet in front of you and their young teacher tied those country kids together with a rope and walked them all home! Those were the days when schoolmarms were plucky and dedicated, not obese and gender-fluid with green hair, organizing Drag Queen Story Hours.
When it’s 122, I can barely walk the 40 feet from the covered parking area to the grocery store without collapsing. Native Arizonans still run around and shop and golf and the kids play outdoor soccer. Not me. I officially become a Shut-In.
I used to hear about shut-ins when I was a kid and was terrified that it meant that they were literally locked in their homes. You know, like Chinese citizens during COVID whose apartments were actually nailed shut from the outside. Yay, Communism!
That did not sound great, although my childhood fantasy was to be locked in the public library, until I had read all the books. I did not have a well-formed plan for hygiene or food. Surely there must have been a bathroom in the Andrew Carnegie (PBUH) Library in Alexandria, Minnesota, but I never knew where it was or had occasion to use it. As a kid, I had the bladder of a camel and could and did go for hours and hours without occasion to use a bathroom. Life was just too busy and interesting when you were a kid to interrupt outdoor play to go to the bathroom. Now I consider getting up only twice a night to be celebratory…sad.
I feel it’s important to do this “Yearly Heat Screed” because Arizona weather is so strikingly different from the weather I was raised in that it is endlessly fascinating to me. A few years before we moved to Arizona, one summer day it hit 102 in Minnesota and locked in for a stretch. We decided to escape the “unbearable” heat for a weekend in Duluth, taking a couple of cabins “Up North” with some good friends. And it was NOT 102 when we got to Duluth. It was 105. Way to waste a bunch of money and STILL not be any cooler!
Oh well, we had a very nice time, although I did think I was going to pass out when I went for about a mile walk. Now, “I eat 105 for breakfast,” to borrow the nonsense phrase used by the Democrats in their “Look At Us, We’re MEN Who Love Kamala” ad AND, most recently, the brilliant Miss Harris herself.
Remember? There was that bizarre and ineffective ad which featured an actor claiming that HE “ate carburetors for breakfast” and Kamala informed us recently that she “eats the word ‘NO’ for breakfast.” Whatever. I usually eat granola with blueberries or scrambled eggs, but I make no judgments about people who prefer carburetors. Any KETO-ITE will tell you that carburetors are better for you than carbohydrates. Kamala probably has Alpha-Bits floating in wine, spelling out the word “No,” so technically she isn’t lying. For a change.
There are six to eight weeks in the DLV when we do not open the door at all because the air outside even in the early morning or late at night is still hotter than the AC set just at 79. Nothing crazy. Water in the faucets comes in “Hot” and “Slightly less Hot.”
I know that I am slowly adjusting. I am much tougher than I was when I first arrived in 2010. Of course, we moved into our Dream House in January, which created quite a false impression of our situation going forward. Never move to Arizona in January or St. Paul in May if you want to see if you are going to like the weather.
I am aware that military training is extremely rigorous for the Navy Seals, the Rangers, and all manner of Special Forces, and they want to weed out people who aren’t going to make it. I have seen in movies the concept of “tapping out” at various forms of training torture.
Well, I can handle 100. I can tolerate 105. But I “tap out” at 115. “Nope. Not going out today. We will eat a surprise frozen leftover from the freezer. Oh look, it SAYS Chicken Curry from 2023. Evidently there was enough left over from the FIRST time I made it to indicate that it was not a hit. Well, here it comes around again on the old guitar!”
“I think I’m going to have expired cottage cheese and a peanut butter and jelly sandwich,” says famous novelist Max Cossack. Sigh.
I checked the badly named Accuweather before writing this column and it predicts triple digit highs for the next 50 days. In fact, the first double-digit high (99, big whoop!) won’t be until mid-September. Oh look! On August 16th, there will be a 3 percent chance of rain to break up the monotony! Do you know what a 3 percent chance of rain means in Arizona, my friends? The same chance of rain as I have of winning the AZ Lottery. Without buying a ticket.
Enjoy your summer anywhere else in America. Okay, Southerners, now do “humidity.”
