Summer forecast /// Typical conversation on a summer's day in the deep south.

Conversation immediately below between two of my co-workers:

C asked, "Hey V, how are you?"

V replied, "I'm good, how are you?"

C said, "Hot and tired."

V said, "It is a bit hot out there today isn't it?" (like this is somehow different than any other day of June, July, August or September in the deep south).

C exhaled in agreement, "Wheeww, I tell ya! (he was agreeing).  I went to vote, parked at the wrong end of the parking lot and had to walk all the way across that blacktop.  Thought I was gonna melt."

V sympathized, "I can imagine."   (What?? Come on, you don't have to imagine ... you live this every single summer day).


Pookie will get the intended humor of this post, because I am one of the southerners who has this conversation almost every single southern day.  Pookie, who was growing somewhat patiently weary of my persistent attachment to this lament, continually but gently reminded me that I could not change it, so why complain about it.  Embrace the suck was his mantra.

Well, I wasn't trying to complain, and it certainly wasn't a surprise to me that it's hot here every single day of summer.  However, for me (and likely all the other southern people afflicted with this bad habit of stating the obvious, and there are more of them than you could shake a stick at), saying that I am hot and am miserable because it is hot, serves the same function for me mentally as sweating does for me physically.  Verbally acknowledging that it is hot, seems to help my brain cope with the miserableness of being hot, while sweating helps my body cool itself off.  As we all know, mind does matter!

And as you may or may not know, there has been at least one study which reported that a resounding expletive like the one that would cause your grandmother's preacher's cousin's wife to faint in the closest pew row, is a very effective pain reliever after stubbing one's toe.  I equate swearing ... that it's hot ... with a mild expletive that serves the same purpose to relieve the pain from a stubbed toe or in this case the discomfort associated with near heat stroke.

So, I just back from voting (let's rewind for a moment shall we?).  As I got out of my car and made my way across some mighty hot blacktop to the voting center, I ran into (not literally) one of my former mailmen.  Not the one who would sometimes drop by after work and talk for an hour, nor my current mailman who brought me that sparkling water while I was mowing grass recently.  This guy served my neighborhood after the first mailman was moved to another route and before the current one took over my neighborhood's route.   After greeting me with a hug, Mister Mailman told me that I looked very pretty (I'm throughly convinced that men are being starved of the visual of a woman in a dress.  Put away those jeans ladies, break out your favorite sundress, day dress or evening gown, and prepare to bask in the compliments that are lying in wait for you.  I don't want to have to bring sexy back all by myself).  Mister Mailman's next foray into conversation, "Boy, it's a hot one today isn't it?"  I refrained from saying "Embrace the suck!"  Instead, I said, "It sure is, one hot one after another."  I think we both felt cooler just from getting that bit of conversation done.  We then talked about everything else under the blazing sun.

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