The Hell Known as Texas

The boys and I just got back from a solid two month stint visiting family in Indiana, where temps generally hovered around 60 degrees, with the occasional 75 to 80 degree spike. It was quintessential spring weather. It was temperate.  It was pleasant. It was lovely.

It was bullshit.

Why? Because it pretty much made me forget how horrific Texas “springs” and summers are. I put “spring” in quotes, because there aren’t really ‘seasons’ here. I use singular quotes around ‘seasons’ because I’m actually using my fingers to make air quotes as I write this, and I’m only using one finger on each hand.

Guess which one.

Eff you, Texas climate. Basically this hell-hole of a place consists of the following ‘seasons’: Summer I, Summer II, Summer III, and Abnormally Warm Spring.

And it’s not just the heat that sucks more than my youngest does on his two favorite fingers.

Thanks, Mom. You could have at least cropped out Minnie Mouse.

It’s the freaking humidity, too. I thought I was through with sauna-esque living when we left the secondary Hell that is Georgia. Seriously, when I told people we were moving from Georgia to Texas, I received a ton of encouraging responses:

“Oh, Texas is SO much nicer than Georgia.” (For the record, the only thing I can honestly say that Texas has over Georgia in the pleasantness department is a lack of cockroaches. At least where we’re living. Can’t say the same for the folks across the street. I’ve seen pest control dudes over there decked out in all their Ghostbuster glory. I guess we lucked out.)

“You’ll like it there.” (This only makes sense to me if the vague pronoun “it” is referring to chocolate. I like chocolate everywhere.)

“Texas is hot, but it’s dry heat.” (More on this later.)

“It’s typically not very sticky.” (Again, with this ambiguous “it” shit. Here, “it” must be a reference to baby powder. Baby powder is never sticky. In fact, it is, like, the anti-sticky.) (EXCEPT MAYBE IN TEXAS.) (Again, more on this later.)

“Texas is AWESOME!” (This person was clearly on something. Or his brain was swelling from the never-spoken-of-Texas-humidity, causing him to blurt out absolute poppycock. Or the Texas Mafia had taken his precious cowboy hat hostage and was blackmailing him into uttering such ridiculous lies.)

Anyway, where the hell is all this “dry heat” people have been talking about? The only thing dry here at the present moment is my throat. From screaming. About the freaking humidity. I mean, it’s still May, and the boys and I pretty much melted on our run yesterday morning. When we left the house around 9:30, the humidity was at 96%. On most grading scales, that’s a measly two points away from an A+ in the subject of unbearably oppressive moisture. I honestly think I may have suffered a little pulmonary edema while we were doing our final hill repeat.

Oh, and to top it off, the temp hit somewhere between 85° and 88°. Which doesn’t sound horrendous, but paired with the aforementioned humidity level, it felt like 70238574.6°.

We are living in Hell.

Everything’s bigger in Texas, including my trademark affinity for hyperbole.

So, in honor of the Army’s unjust dictatorship decision to send us to Texas, subjecting us to its merciless heat tsunamis (the term “wave” just don’t cut it here), I’ve decided to compose a list of things that are hotter than a Texas summer:

1. The sun.

2. Liquid tantalum hafnium carbide, a refractory compound with a melting point of 4488 K (7618.73° F).

3. Eating a bowl of Carolina Reaper Chile Peppers. 

4. Then shitting them out.

5. While sitting on a lit burner on a gas stovetop.

6. This building:

via Pixabay

7. An ant under a zoosadistic’s magnifying glass.

8. Falling asleep on a mound of fire ants directly in front of a zoosadistic with a giant magnifying glass.

9. Having sex with the Heat Miser.

10. In a furnace.

11. While using sulfuric acid as lube.

12. And a hollowed-out jalapeno as a condom.

13. Being the filling of a Ryan Gosling and Liam Hemsworth sandwich.

And here is a list of things that are more humid than a Texas summer:

1. The Pacific Ocean.

2. The Atlantic Ocean.

3. The Arctic Ocean.

4. The Indian Ocean.

5. The Southern Ocean.

6. Pretty much any body of water that is deep enough to allow total submersion of a human body.

And just to wrap it all up, here’s a list of things that are grosser than living in Texas in the summer:

1. Cockroaches.

via Pixabay

Yup, that’s it.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to go dry my hands before I crash my keyboard. I think my fingernails are sweating.