Shelter Island Reporter

It's too hot. It might not be too hot right this minute, while you're reading these words, but it's hot while I'm writing them. I'm in my living room and I am way past glistening perspiration hot, I am up to dripping big drops of sweat hot. 


I used to have a great window air conditioner that we'd put in the living room when it got this hot but it's not working too well. After you've dropped an air conditioner from a second-story window, you can't expect to get much from it. The unit in question had been placed in an upstairs bedroom window last year while we had company. Without thinking (insert DUH here), I lifted that window to shout to a grandchild playing in the yard below and when I lifted the window, the air conditioner fell forward. For a split second it teetered on the sill, tethered by its plug and I thought I could save it, but no. Out it went, the electrical cord whipping through my hands. All I could do was stare at the unit as it tumbled away from me, hit the deck, then bounced to the lawn, burying itself a half foot deep into the grass. 


“Heads up!” I yelled, about 15 seconds too late because by then assorted grandchildren, adults and animals (dogs, cats and a few stray deer attracted by the commotion) stood in a circle around the air conditioner that seemed to have fallen from the sky.


I would like to report that it was the only air conditioner I have dropped out of a second story window, but I'd be lying. The other one didn't land on anyone, either. No harm, no foul, I always say. But, sadly, we have run out of air conditioners, which is too bad because this is way hot.


It's so hot that nearly every conversation begins “hot enough for ya?” When it's this hot it's hard to talk about anything else and it reminds me of one of my favorite movie lines of all time. I laughed the first time I heard it and I think about it when it gets like this. (Unless I'm too hot. Then it's not funny.) The film was “Biloxi Blues” and when Eugene reports for boot camp in Mississippi, he steps out of the bus on a scorching summer afternoon and says, “Boy it's hot. This is hot. It never got this hot in Brooklyn. It's like Africa hot. Tarzan couldn't take this kind of hot.”


I'm laughing right now, in spite of myself and the sweat.


It kind of feels like we're Africa hot. It's the kind of hot that makes dogs think it's August, newlyweds settle for an air kiss, and a doting mommy look at her damp, squirming, clutching newborn and say to the daddy, “I'm not pickin' her up. I carried her for nine months, you pick her up.”


But not everyone thinks it's too hot. On Sunday I ran into Mr. “Hot? Hot? You call this hot?” 


That came from another old-timer, very much like the one who said, “Cold? Cold? You call this cold?” during a particularly harsh February. Remember him, the guy who said that winters aren't as cold as they used to be? That it got so cold here one winter all the cows froze. Froze and broke. That's why there's not so many cows here anymore. So he said.


Well guess what, it turns out that summers aren't as hot as they used to be, either. At least according to one octogenarian who stood out in the sun, oblivious to the sweat that was trickling down his face and dangling from his nose. I had to force myself from grabbing the red kerchief from his back pocket and blotting his whole head.


“People are just spoiled nowadays” he said. “It was a lot hotter back then and we didn't have no air conditioning, neither. We had hats. That's what protected us from the sun, that and shade and long-sleeved shirts. Course, short sleeves hadn't been invented yet, but only a dang fool wears short sleeves when it's so dang hot.” 


He bounced his head when he spoke, causing that dangling drop of sweat to break free but that was little relief because I could see another drop following the same trail and I was dripping myself, a lot more than he was. Probably because unlike him, I was not wearing a long-sleeved shirt, I was the dang fool in short sleeves and no hat and I could feel the sun poaching my brain right through my soft spot.


I cut the conversation short and ran for my car, cranking the AC the minute I was inside. The old timer got into his beat-up truck, windows all down, and waved as he pulled out ahead of me. In the back of the truck was a big box with a picture of his latest purchase. A 24,500 BTU air conditioner. With remote.