Heather Christena Schmidt

IT IS SO FUCKING MISERABLE OUTSIDE.

Ok…to be fair, it really isn’t entirely miserable. I mean, it’s not like in the south where it’s 100 degrees and humid. It’s not the Midwest either, and it’s certainly not equator-weather.

Nonetheless, it’s hot out; hot for coastal California. And it’s humid; and basically no one has air conditioning but the five square miles around us (I think because we live in the equivalent of Hell in terms of heat for this area). So I’m not going many places, except this weekend our air conditioning broke. Now I have nowhere to go, on account of ostracizing myself from society to a) stay in my nice, air conditioned house; and, b) out of a general disdain for other people. Last night it was 97 degrees in my house at 11 o’clock at night because the air conditioning guys were running the heat to fix the air (I just don’t understand) and I was just sitting there, dying in a puddle of melted skin.

Which leads me to the first reason I hate summer: it may as well be called boob sweat season. Can’t go anywhere without busting a major boob sweat.

There’s pretty much twenty kids milling around outside my front door on a daily basis now, too. Which should be OK – seeing as I’m a mom and all – but I don’t typically enjoy the company of other people’s children (especially when those kids are disrespectful creeps); and to top it all off, most of them don’t seem to understand the daytime concept of “some of us actually have lives that need to go on without your loud and incessant chatter outside our front doors.”

When do these kids go back to school again?

The third thing hacking me off about the summer season right now is watermelon.

Now, don’t get me wrong: I love me my watermelon. In fact, I have a really strange obsession with buying those personal mini watermelons EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. I go grocery shopping (so we’re talking several personal mini watermelons purchased per week…all year long).

But…my love of watermelon is mine. Not everyone else’s. I don’t like seeing all the articles about what people can do with watermelon showing up on my Facebook newsfeed. Similarly, I wish I could hit ‘dislike’ on all of people’s Instagram posts about their tequila watermelon or how they came up with the novel idea to stick their watermelon on popsicle sticks.

Novel idea my ass. I’ve been sticking my personal mini watermelons dipped in tequila on popsicle sticks since before you people even knew what a personal mini watermelon was. And to top that off, I don’t really dip it in tequila – that was a joke for emphasis – because WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT TO WATERMELON?! When summer is over, you’ll all go back to your complete disregard for what may very well be the greatest fruit on the planet, and I will still be obsessively purchasing my personal minis several times per week.

Which makes you all posers. Summertime watermelon posers, making this summer basically the worst right now.

Corn on the cob is another one.

I love corn on the cob. Who doesn’t? No really… is there anyone that doesn’t at least moderately enjoy the summer vegetable?

All year long I wait, patiently. Patiently for the day that corn will be on sale again, and – more importantly – when we will start getting this delicious bi-color corn in our weekly CSA box.

Except when we get it, there’s like one. Or two. Have these people not gotten how many meals I serve every day? The bi-color corn is so goddamned good that we all fight over it, and when there’s only one in the week’s box I feel as though I have to ration out bites.

No really. One week I actually suggested we each take approximately three bites of the one cob. Just pass that shit on around the table until we’ve all had our fair share.

I almost just wish I had never heard of bi-color corn, or that corn weren’t a big summer thing either.

Where are we at now? Four reasons summer is just the worst?

The fifth is my inability to tan. Not that I want skin cancer or anything, but it seems as though everyone around me is suddenly golden and tan – which I equate with having a relaxing lifestyle that could afford the time to lie around and garner such a thing.

And then there’s me – good ol’ whitey. My skin is so pale and white, people’s eyes hurt with they look at me with the sun reflecting off my glow-y, pasty skin.

Not my hair, though. My hair lightens. And my dark hair dye that I use religiously to cover my annoying-non-Californian-Californian-blonde fades pretty much the minute I walk out of the hair salon, leaving me looking terrible. Just. Terrible. Glow in the dark white skin, matched with faded-nappy-looking-hair and sweat pretty much everywhere. Crabby from all the kids hanging around my neighborhood…bitching at people to shut up already about their watermelon. H-angry because I didn’t get a full cob of my week’s rationing of bi-color corn on the cob.

In a nut shell, I hate summer. It is my least favorite of the four seasons, for these and many other reasons. Like the price of sunscreen – which should be given out for free, not charged at $15 a bottle that barely covers my white and pasty ass.

Or the fact that California is on burn alert FLAMING RED 24 hours a day. We are all literally one asshole flicking his cigarette butt in the wrong direction-away from burning completely and utterly to the ground.

I could go on.

Summer is basically the worst right now. Well, really always for me but it’s really getting to me now that we’re in the innards of the season.

I know you all will probably disagree, as you eat your tequila watermelons on a stick and bask in the glow of your perfectly tanned appendages. In the meantime, I’ll be counting down the minutes until fall.