People can get hot under the collar discussing which sort of heat is the worst heat. There’s dry scorching heat that feels like a pizza oven, or blowing heat propelled by strong winds that feels like a jet engine roaring in your face. And then there’s the oppressive mix of heat and humidity.
We live in oppressive heat and humidity.
It’s the worst.
Unless, of course, we’re in the pizza oven heat or blowing heat. Then they’re the worst.
Wherever you live, that is where the heat is the worst.
If you haven’t had the pleasure of knowing our heat and humidity combo, it is like opening your dishwasher while the wash cycle is still going and sticking your head in.
Or like when you dump a big pot of pasta into a colander in the sink and that giant cloud of evaporating moisture engulfs your entire upper body.
Last night I got out of the car with my reading glasses on and they fogged over.
The heat and humidity combo is like living in a steam bath.
Fully clothed.
And there’s no hope of getting out of your clothes because they are stuck to you – really stuck to you – like when the tape breaks in the dispenser and you can’t peel it off the roll again. Everything sticks in the heat and humidity.
Even wood sticks. All of our doors have been sticking for weeks. Bedroom and bathroom doors need us to lean in with our shoulders to open them. The door to the patio needs a swift kick at the base and the front door needs us to bump it with our hip. Twice.
High humidity gives the phrase ‘stuck at home’ new meaning.
Our son-in-law, who enjoys home improvement projects, noticed the doors sticking and immediately adjusted the hinges on every door in the house and then planed every door. We went from door to door with him, admiring his work, opening and closing every door with ease, thanking him profusely.
The next day every door was sticking again.
It has been so humid that when we wake up in the mornings we can’t see outside. The windows are covered with heavy condensation. Our windows need wiper blades.
The humidity has been so awful that I haven’t had a good hair day since late April. Oh, I’ve had a few good hair moments, but nothing approaching a good hair day or even a good hair half hour.
I step outside, the humidity latches onto my hair, and it looks like I’m wearing a poodle on my head. Or like I gave myself a home perm and forgot to watch the clock.
The humidity has been so heavy that you could take a bathroom scale outside, set it on the sidewalk, and the air would register a weight.
Our air is so heavy it needs to diet.
My weather app just alerted me to another heat index warning due to high humidity. If this keeps up, we may not go out again until fall.
That’s assuming we can get any of the doors unstuck.
