A Corny Column: Why It's Cool To Be Hot And An Elephant Ordinance

It’s time for everyone to stop complaining about the heat and embrace it. 

Heat gets a bad rap. It’s associated with lots of bad things like rashes, global warming, and dark underworlds. But heat does nice things too, like cook hot dogs and bake cookies.

Today, my daughter and I baked my husband a birthday cake I’m a terrible baker and ended up covered in egg whites, sugar and flour. Interestingly though, when I stepped outside, I became the world’s first human crêpe. The forces of nature are a wonder. 

Heat also refers to good things. If a person is attractive we can say, "Wow, he (or she) is really hot.” It can also mean trendy, like “wedge heels are really hot right now.” 

I also think it is really funny how people are surprised that it’s hot in July. July comes every year at the same time. As a reminder, it’s month number seven—wedged between June and August.  In fact, you can mark time by the size of a cornstalk without ever owning a calendar. By Independence Day, corn is “knee high by the Fourth of July”.  Later in the month, that same stalk will be “as high as an elephant’s eye.” 

To be clear, I do acknowledge it is easier to buy a calendar than grow a cornstalk and keep a pet elephant. We just got chickens here in town, didn’t we? Let’s not push it by lobbying for circus animals too. 

It was really hot at the Saint John of The Cross Festival on Friday night. I thought I would be there for 45 minutes, but it was more like two hours by the time I got done “working.” On the way there I spoke to a woman for about 10 minutes about the joys of owning a giant poodle. I was standing on Wolf Road melting like a banana split on blacktop before I even got to my reporting gig.

Once there, I met lots of new people, and saw lots of friends. I stopped short of hugging anyone for fear that the skin-to sweat-ratio would create an awkward semi-permanent vacuum. It was over an hour before I pulled the story together, and by that time I was Spongemom. 

When I finally made it home, I was really embarrassed by how mop-like I looked. Some people perspire—I sweat. My yellow bangs hung in strands and stuck to my forehead. I looked like a scarecrow’s animatronic blind date. My clothes clung to me like thick paint splatter. In my air-conditioned family room, I feared hypothermia as the ceiling fan made me feel like someone filled my limbs with Freon.

This is where I confess how I’m actually one of “those people” who hate hot weather. If this column reaches Lapland somehow, I humbly request an all expense paid trip to the Ice Hotel. I dream about my journey there, on a dogsled pulled by purebred standard poodles.  Is that too much to ask for in July?

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