Heat Wave

People keep apologizing to me. It’s stunning, ridiculous and wholly unnecessary.

They’re begging pardon for the heat. 

I mean, New Yorkers barely apologize for things over which they actually have control (sign of weakness and all that), but these over-apologetic Southerners seem to think I confuse them with God or Mother Nature or even the Gulf Stream.

I don’t.

We live in the Deep South. It’s hot here. I get it.

See the red down there near Georgia? That means it's hot.
Gulf Stream surface temperature map via NASA.

But beyond my understanding of simple geography, historical weather patterns and the depletion of the ozone, my body isn’t shocked by heat.

My last decade of summers were spent in New York, where the days greet you with the “three H’s”: hazy, hot and humid.

New York City at 9 a.m., mid-August 2009.
via eastcoastwestcoast

What’s worse is that New York summers require lots of walking in the hazy, hot and humid soup that is the five-borough-atmosphere.

Georgia summer requires getting into your air-conditioned car.

New York summer requires standing on busy street corners; rivulets of sweat running down your spine; thick, warm car exhaust hitting your shins, all while you wait to cross the street and start walking again.

Georgia summer means scorching one-minute intervals, during which you run from one air-conditioned place to another: house to car, car to office, office to car, car to grocery store, and so on.

New York summer means sweltering 10-plus-minute waits on packed subway platforms, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with hordes of steamy people all anxiously waiting to shove their way onto the train.

New York summer also means you stand a good chance of getting on a subway train with broken A.C.

Georgia summer means spending your weekend mornings outside—while the heat is still bearable—before spending afternoons in your centrally-air-conditioned house. 

Fletch cooling off in the sprinklers at Greenwood Playground.
Brooklyn, July 2010.

New York summer means standing in front of a window unit, shirt pulled to shoulders, while the A.C. works so hard and ineffectively that you fear your apartment may single-handedly cause a citywide blackout.

We had four window units for our three-bedroom apartment.
It was still too darn hot.
via Air Conditioning 101

New York summer means a citywide blackout is a real possibility—and even though window units aren’t perfect, they’re a whole lot better than just sitting and stewing in darkness with zero movement of air.

So, in summary, there’s no need to apologize.

It may be hot out there, but it’s nice and cool in here.