Kansas City: We'll Clear Out Your Pours Whether You Like It Or Not

I hate summer.

I hate summer more than you can imagine. If I were a superhero, my arch nemesis would be Dr. Summer. I would spend all of my time trying to stop Dr. Summer from destroying Megaopolis, my superhero location, with his heat ray and humidity blaster.

I remember when I was young, I loved summer. Summer meant no more school which equaled freedom. Yes, around mid-July, the freedom did start to get boring, but I was free nonetheless. It didn’t matter if the humidity was 625% or the heat index was clocking in at 212 degrees.

As I grew older, though, this love of summer drifted away. Maybe it was my childlike wonder dying. Maybe I had grown disillusioned with the world. Maybe I was no longer allowed to summers off as an adult, making me increasingly bitter.

Whatever the reason, the views of summer are drastically different between childhood and adulthood. The differences in the view of summer can be expressed with these two formulas:

Childhood: Summer=Freedom

Adulthood: Summer=Seriously? Does the thermometer really say that? Looks like the lawn isn’t getting mowed this month…

Now, all of this is not to be blamed on Mother Nature. She’s a good ol’ dame, providing us with a great deal of pleasant weather. Remember spring? Now that is a season. No, I give equal blame to the weather and to Kansas City.

Ah, yes. My hometown. There is a lot to love about Kansas City. There’s barbecue, there’s culture (Seriously, there actually is. Our art museum has an exhibit of Monet’s water lily paintings right now, and if that isn’t culture, then I don’t know what is.), there’s an interesting history involving Jesse James and Charlie Parker and Walt Disney.

One thing you can’t love, though, is the weather.

You know how people try to justify the heat in Arizona by repeatedly saying, “It’s a dry heat,” completely ignoring the fact that their dry heat is clocking in at 115 degrees? Kansas City doesn’t even have that luxury. It isn’t uncommon to watch the news and see a weather report saying, “The high tomorrow be a hot 100 degrees with a heat index of 112.”

See, Kansas City is home to the heat index, a mythical calculation of humidity and temperature that tells you what it feels like outside. This calculation was invented because meteorologists felt stupid getting on TV and saying, “Tomorrow will be 100, but it’ll feel super-hot instead of just really-hot.” It is used to try to adequately express how much you don’t want to go outside because you will instantly feel sweat pouring down your face.

In fact, a better measurement of temperature would be the sweat index. This would be calculated by the number of seconds it is until you feel disgusting and are in need of a shower. When the weatherman said, “The sweat index tomorrow will be 1.3 seconds, so definitely bring a change of clothes and an extra Speed Stick!” you would know exactly what was being talked about and how that relates to your real life.

Fortunately, the air conditioner was invented. Without it, Kansas City would become a ghost town. No one would move, everyone would sit on their couch, fan blowing at them, thinking about how nice Minnesota must be this time of the year.

You’re still prone to think this occasionally even with the AC. Air conditioners can only do so much and until I find a portable air conditioner suit (You’d think if they can send a man to the moon…) then I will still spend a good amount of my time worried that my insides are beginning to boil.

I’m thinking about moving to a zoo’s penguin habitat during the summers. There’s fish to eat and that’s brain food. It’s cooler and you don’t feel overdressed with your tuxedo on. I will have no reason to step outside during the summer months. There, I will wait out Dr. Summer until Fallman finally arrives.

 He is significantly more pleasant.

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