Summer Scrooge
By Walter Ang
April 27, 2000
Philippine Daily Inquirer
Usually, everyone's ecstatic over the arrival of the summer months. School's out and the beaches are all ripe for the picking. Everything's a rosy picture of fun and games, of swimming pools and ice cold lemonade. We must take it upon ourselves to burst everyone's bubble and expose the vile truth. The idea of having fun during the summer is one enormous delusion. Doesn't everybody realize what a humongous hassle summertime is?
First of all, you have the heat. The scorching, blazing sun beats down on us all day long. Admittedly, the heat wouldn't be so bad if it weren't living in a tropical country. It's just that the heat coupled with the intense humidity is an extremely deadly weapon. The moment you step out of your house, wham! You feel as if you've stepped into a solid wall of tepid water. No, actually, warm molasses is more like it.
Keeping it cool
So there you are, hot and sticky while profusely leaking gallons of sweat from every pore of your body. You run back indoors where there's airconditioning, or at the very least, a stand fan you can stand in front of. The short respite doesn't last as the electricity goes kaput from over heating and all the high tech, man made, computerized climate control systems to keep you cool are no longer functioning. All you've got is an abaca fan that you swiped from the corner barbeque vendor.
You're fanning yourself furiously as you get crabbier and crabbier. The temperature isn't the only thing that goes up in the summer time, your temper's steadily rising too. While you feel uncomfortable and ready to bash everyone you meet with fists of fury, you decide to just leave it all and take a walk to let off some steam.
Only the truly desperate (or demented) would want to take a walk under the sweltering summer sun. With all those detestable ultraviolet rays streaming from the sky above, you risk exposing yourself to a skin cancer causing agent. You smear yourself with the highest SPF sunblock you can find in the market. The stuff makes you feel even stickier and it worst of all, it has that sweet sickly smell that only makes you dizzy.
More problems
As you put on your sunglasses to prevent cataracts from forming in your eyes, you encounter another problem that this season brings. The summer sun dries everything up. As a result, dust, sand, and other tiny pollutants that would normally be matted to the damp ground are now having the time of their life. Watch them fly around in the air like birds! When a slight summer breeze decides to grace us with its presence, all that dirt smashes into your face and sticks to the layer of sunblock that conceals your epidermis. Later on, this is what causes that repulsive zit to breakout on your nose.
You desperately want to escape and you consider rushing to the nearest mall. Free airconditioning and you don't even have to buy anything! You hop onto the first jeepney you see, excited and anxious to get going. For the next two hours, you wonder if entire solar systems have either died or were born while you were waiting in traffic. You feel your brain slowly baking in the torrid heat thanking the heavens that summer's only a couple of months!
Then it'll be the rainy season. Wait a minute. Oh no!
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