There are two types of people in this world: People who like summer, and me.
After much consideration, I have decided to side with me.
Summer has its perks, sure — a box of Junior Mints left in the car transforms magically into one giant Junior Mint — but it’s still the most overrated season. Its default No. 1 position bugs me — summer gets celebrated simply for arriving on the scene, the Miami Heat of Mother Nature.
Well, I’m here to speak truth to power: Summer is, at best, tied with winter for last place. So much of summer’s warm reputation doesn’t hold up in the cold light of day.
Take summer vacation, that idyllic childhood window filled with bee stings, bike crashes, and, if you went with the full package, broken bones.
These are the best days of our lives?
The backyard playground alone was a death trap: A hard plastic swing, apparently coated with Pam, that caused every child to slip toward the ground face-first with the force of a robin into a bay window. This resulted in the official childhood Five-Alarm Cry: Stunned silence/siren wail/more silence/remembering to breathe/more wailing.
The slippery swing seat is baffling in retrospect, because the slide attached on the side was so non-slippery that nothing could go down it, including marbles. Kids didn’t slide down it, so much as shimmy. Water might have gone down it, except the slide was made of metal and often got so hot that it would start emitting X-rays. “It’s nice out, so don’t play on the slide!” was a common parental warning.
Of course, now that I’m an adult I can see there’s more to summer than just potential injuries — there’s also potential death.
Between beach riptides, exploding barbecues, and wildlife attacks, there is hardly a chance to contract West Nile.
Even summer’s most cited perk, the weather, is not all it’s cracked up to be. On any given day there is bound to be a smog alert, a humidex warning, a UV warning, a severe thunderstorm watch, a tornado warning, a watch for warnings watch, a stolen watch warning, or a “special weather statement” that warns of some weather pattern you’ve never heard of before, like a “Manure Storm” or “Smulch.”
All things considered, it’s better to hibernate until winter. I recommend a stockpile of Junior Mints to see you through.
