10 reasons summer is the worst thing ever

Summer kicks my trash. For one thing, the weather makes me feel horrible and leads to me swell up like a balloon. Also, my hands are virtually unusable from the months of April-October. For another thing, my kids are out of school. Now I love my kids very much, but I’ve found since my illness my tolerance for a little person talking to me for 12 straight hours has diminished. I love that my son is curious, but I do get tired of answering the same questions over and over and over and over again. How can one tiny person have so much energy? He literally bounces around all day long while I’m dragging my tired carcass from place to place. Then there is my daughter whose mission in life is to see how many times a minute she can whine about her brother. So all this has led me to think about:

 

10 reasons summer is the worst thing ever

1. Body Shaming

Did you know only skinny white girls are supposed to wear bathing suits? Otherwise, you’re “promoting obesity.” Fuck that, it’s a million degrees and I wear what I want. Everyone is allowed to wear a swimsuit and enjoy their summer.

 

2. Children everywhere you go

Now I like children, I have two after all, and I even like my friends’ children, but I hate being around other people’s children in public places. Exhausted parents and grandparents take their kids out to give themselves a break and let them run around like crazy hooligans. So if I’m out in public I not only have to parent my children, I have to parent the kids whose parents are too lazy to parent. When a 14-year-old thinks it’s appropriate to beat my kid and the parents are too lazy to get up and stop it, I have to lecture the 14-year-old on how if he wants to avoid Juvenile Detention, he better find a way to be a productive citizen.

3. Boob sweat

Maybe some of you live in more temperate climates where it’s hot and the humidity isn’t always 100%, but I do, which means lots and lots of boob sweat.

I hate heat, humidity, sweat, and bras. Like bras aren’t bad enough on their own being basically torture devices.

4. Melting ice cream/ Popsicle conundrum 

One of the greatest summer conundrums is the need to buy cold treats and keep the cold treats from melting from the store to home. Even though I put my Popsicles under the AC vent on the way home from the store yesterday, they melted before I could get them to the freezer. First world problem I know, but it’s freaking hot here and I need Popsicles.

5. Electric bills

It’s only May and it’s already 90 degrees here. I’m a sweaty mess after just blow-drying my hair for 10 minutes. From the hours of 3-7 pm, my AC doesn’t ever stop running. I try to turn up the temperature to give the AC a break, but when your AC is set to 82 degrees it feels like you’re living in a sauna. And then the cost for that sauna is still several hundred dollars a month, resulting in me being much poorer in the summer. Plus, because heat makes my pain and stiffness worse, I really need to keep the temperature at a reasonable level.

 

6. Sand, sand everywhere

When people find out that I live near the beach they always say “That must be so amazing, I’d love to live by the beach. You are so lucky!” People, I do not live on the beach of my own free will, I live here because of Lyndon B Johnson and government pork projects.

Hurricanes and jellyfish aside, I hate the beach because sand is the “gift” that just keeps on giving. It gets in your car, which you then have to vacuum. It’s getting on your sandals, which you have to hose off. It gets on your kids, who wash it off in the bath, and then you have to wash the bath. Then you put the sandy towels in the washer and then you have to wash the sand out of the washer. It’s the nightmare that never ends.

7. Never-ending light

I need the sun to live, I really do. I love laying in the grass and feeling the warm sun on my skin but in the summer that feeling results in sunburn in 15 minutes or less, (not to mention the grass is pokey and I’d get attacked by fire ants) And then the sun never goes away! It cheerfully wakes you up at 6:00 am when you don’t want to be cheerful, and then it won’t go away until 10:00 pm when you just freaking want your kids to go to sleep.

8. Shaving your legs and *ahem* swimsuit areas

In the summer I HAVE TO SHAVE THE TOP HALF OF MY LEGS. *Shudder* This involves contortions on a whole new level that I do not appreciate. And then I have to wear a swimsuit almost every day because I live on the sun and the only way to survive is to be in the pool.

9. Ice cream trucks

There’s nothing like having your day interrupted by “Turkey in the straw” blaring on a loudspeaker as the ice cream truck spends 30 freaking minutes circling the neighborhood. Not only do I get to listen to the song, but I also get to be hounded by my kids to buy overpriced ice cream from a creepy man in a van.

Nope.

10. Bugs

Here in Texas, there are bugs year-round. The roaches never actually die no matter how cold it gets. However, in the summer the bugs reach a new level of gross. Roaches, bees, wasps, fire ants, mosquitoes, June bugs, ticks, beetles, spiders, cicadas, flies, gnats, and more are all more prevalent in the summer. No one ever tells you how loud cicadas are.

 

Don’t worry though, this post is only half true/half sarcasm so not only will I survive I might even like it a little bit.  As long as the roaches don’t eat me.