Alaska Is Looking Like Paradise Right About Now...

It has been so stinking hot in DC the last few weeks that one would think that my extra weight would just be melting off of my bones... but that has yet to happen.

Last night we were sitting on the couch and I realized that I was damn hot... not in the "don't hate me because I am beautiful" type of hot, but the "my pits are sweating and my cha-cha is sticky" kind of hot.

I assumed that the air conditioner was just trying to keep up with the sweltering heat of the day and the house would cool itself down at night.

I woke up at 5 a.m. so cranky and uncomfortable that I thought my brain was on fire. I trudged down to the A/C controller to find out that it was 80 frigging degrees in this hell's hot hole that I like to call my house.

I think that maybe I didn't have the A/C set low enough and push the lever down to 60 degrees and go back to sleep only to wake again at 8 feeling as if I had just taken part in a jalapeno eating contest.

I came to the horrible realization that during the hottest week this summer our air conditioner decided to check out... on a Saturday no less when overtime pay is in place for Dave the Air Conditioning Whisperer.

As I sit her with cold rags on my neck and between my legs I wonder just how it was that I survived the summers of my childhood. My parents did not have air conditioning... it was a frivolous thing that we did not need, much like cable TV and Atari.

I remember sleeping in just my underpants and slapping mosquitoes became our favorite pastime that we used to lull ourselves into a heat induced coma each night.

What a wimp I have become that I cannot even handle a few hours with no A/C... I mean really, my mother raised me to be stronger than this. Wasn't it her that taught me how to take a cold bath and lay on the couch with the fan pointed directly upon her while she shouted things like "No you can't come in the house, drink out of the hose!" and "You don't need sunscreen!"

I am going to follow in the footsteps of the best mother I know and go lay on the couch and moan as if I were in pain from the heat. Maybe I can get one of these kids of mine to bring me a cold soda from the fridge and then scream "Shut the refrigerator door! What are you trying to air condition the entire house?"

And my kids complain that we don't have any family traditions...