Summer Woes

Last year, I wrote an article about the best things about summer. This year I'm going to do the opposite. Make no mistake, I'd take July over February any day of the week. But, like everything else, there are a few aspects that I could do without.

For starters, mosquitoes. Bugs in general, and how their population multiples exponentially this time of year, but especially mosquitos. A perfect summer evening on the patio or around a campfire is instantly made less enjoyable by swarms of relentless, humming mini-buzzards. You get cramps in your arms from constantly flailing them around like helicopter blades. The fabric-softener-tucked-into-your-hat trick doesn't work, no matter how much you want it to, and all the tiki torches in the world aren't going to get rid of them. You can douse yourself in deet and light expensive mosquito candles all you want, they're still going to get you. It's how they're programmed.

And, relate with me here, is there anything worse than a mosquito in your room at night? I think not. Just the other night, I was awoken abruptly by that familiar hum in my ear - you know the one, at first you think it's just your ears ringing, until it gets closer and closer. I leapt out of the bed on the attack, crazed and flustered. Mr. Mosquito and I spent the next hour playing Mantracker in the early morning darkness of my house. I had turned on every light, creeping around like a trained assassin, sandal in one hand and book in the other. I have to give it to him, he was pretty stealthy. It took me longer than I thought, but eventually I found him sitting innocently on the wall in the hallway, and I introduced him to my sandal. I slept like a baby after that.

Next on my list is humidity. I certainly don't mind heat, especially in contrast to bitter winter temperatures, but here's the thing: when it's cold, you can put on a sweater or grab a blanket to warm up. When it's hot and humid, there's really no escape. Sure, you can all crowd around an air conditioner, but that's not practical or even possible sometimes. For those of us with naturally curly hair, a humid day turns our 40 minutes of hair-straightening work into wasted time, morphing "Winnie Cooper sleek" into "Diana Ross in concert". Or, what about heat in cars? The heat that welcomes you after an hour at the mall, is enough to choke you. A sunny day with a nice breeze is perfect, but windless, dead heat is not my cup of tea.

And, what about sunburn? Almost everyone I know has been careless with sunscreen at some point and ended up with a scorching burn. However, getting a bit red on the shoulders is nothing compared to failing miserably at the art of the summer tan.

Getting a tan is much harder than it seems. As soon as the sun starts to shine and school ends, we're expected to pack away our neon-white bodies and turn into golden sun goddesses (a wise woman once said, brown fat looks better than white fat). We all make big plans to ease into it by cheating and heading to the tanning booth, but few irregular tanners (those of us who aren't brown all year round) make the commitment and get a solid primer coat before hitting the beach.

I didn't make the same mistake I did last summer, by coating myself in dark tanning oil on Canada Day and laying out in Port Hood, and I actually put some thought into how to accomplish this elusive tan. I laid the groundwork early (tanning booth occasionally since April), I was diligent (no skinny straps in the sun, sunscreen an inch thick when I wore t-shirts to avoid the dreaded "farmer's tan"), and I was hopeful. I came to find that getting a good tan is much like baking a souffle; not everyone can do it right, no matter how hard they try. It's either going to turn out or completely flop, and no amount of trying can ever fix it once that happens. Let's put it this way, I won't be making a career in souffles any time soon.

I was hesitant to moan at all about this time of year that we spend the rest of the year waiting for. After all, in a few short weeks we'll reluctantly welcome autumn, my favorite season, and we'll all be more than willing to put up with the mosquitoes and sunburn for just a brief dose of that same miserable heat.