It’s summer in Phoenix, and you have two options. Please read the descriptions below and write your selection on the line below.
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Option one: Blazing heat. Any temperature above 110 degrees. It is so hot the air smells like burnt something. Asphalt? Hopes and dreams? Not important. The ambient smell is burnt. When you hang your clothes out to dry, they are fully, crispy dry after one hour. Or less. A walk from your air conditioned house to the garden results in full-body sweat.
Fun bonus feature for parents of small children: though you are measurably closer to the equator than those in say, Minneapolis or Seattle, the sky begins lightening at five am and it is not fully dark until 8, so your small humans are still waking at inhumane hours. Stores, museums, and the library are keeping winter hours, opening at nine, ten, or later. That means your attempts to do selfish things like buy groceries or go to that museum will begin at the end of the bearable part of the day and end as the sun unleashes its full fury upon the earth.
And the same children who can’t find their socks, where did you put their socks, where is the place they have always been, can they just leave the house without socks—these children also don’t like to be out when it’s hot.
Option two: Same as above, but with humidity*. The sunlight bites less on your skin, but the air takes longer to walk through. The sweating, confusingly, is worse. You may get a lovely cold thunderstorm, or you may just get a dust storm. Visually impressive, they make the humidity gritty and are quite hazardous to drivers, animals, and landscaping.
And no, if you choose option two, none of the stores open any earlier and the children still don’t know where their socks are.
*Denizens of places that regularly have humidity above 50% are not allowed to scoff here. The average humidity in Phoenix is extremely low for nine months out of twelve. Everyone has lost their tolerance for the levels of humidity that produce rain.
Both these options sound terrible, you say? Too bad, they’re the options on offer. If you’re fussed about it, go write a book about someplace perpetually cold and wet.
Allison Ringness 