The air is heavy
Dripping with humidity
Got a cigarettes?
Yesterday, the temperature hit 100° with an accompanying humidity of nearly 100%. A few days ago in Phoenix, the mercury climbed to 117°. Of course, that was a dry heat, as we on the East Coast are so found of saying, so we---being of hardy East Coast stock---could easily handle such heat.
Who cares that if one had the inclination, one could set an oven at 115° and make beef jerky by drying out thinly sliced steaks? Who cares that a jellyfish would evaporate in about a minute if left to fry on a sidewalk under such scorching conditions? It’s a dry heat, see. It’s not humid like it is on this coast.
Because we as humans always need to feel that we suffer more than our comrades living in far harsher climates, the gods of meteorology have created such terms as heat index and wind chill, which supposedly accounts for the differences in temperature and humidity. It may be -53° in Alaska and here in Maryland only 23°, but with the wind chill, the temperature feels like -18°. Therefore, we suffer, too, and can relate to the plight of the Eskimos.
It’s the same with heat.
I went to eat outside at lunch yesterday (being a hardy New Englander) and noticed something very interesting. After leaving my air conditioned building and being slammed by a Mike Tyson uppercut of heat, I saw from between the dazed slits that had become my eyes another hardy East Coast gentlemen sitting in his parked car with his windows rolled down.. His vehicle lolled in the hot afternoon sun like my dog on our deck. And from within the confines of that car, this hardy individual chain-smoked...
...because, you know, when its hot enough to steal the breath from your chest, you might as well inhale hot smoke into your lungs.
It dries out the heat.
Posted by haberd at July 27, 2005 08:27 AM