Listen. You didn’t mean to be that person who was flipping off the sun while screaming a few choice words in the middle of your kids’ elementary school playground at 2:30 in the afternoon (much to the horror of the teachers and the utter delight of the students).
But in your defense, that wasn’t really you. You’re not That Person. It was the heat that made you do it. The unrelenting heat. Standing out there on the endless blacktop as it beat down while you waited for the kids to get out of school. Sweat in your eyes, a swamp developing in the rear, a lake forming in your bra.
It’s enough to drive anyone insane.
Welcome to That One Week In September. When a heat dome has settled over Your Area, making it 97 degrees with the humidity of hot garbage. Despite the fact the calendar clearly says September and you’ve been having semi-erotic dreams about cute beanie hats for weeks already.
It happens every year. Summer refusing to leave, clinging like a cranky toddler and smacking you in the face with your flip flops that have been on their last legs since the middle of August.
And this is always a particularly evil weather development because what else happens every year? That Week Before That Week In September. When there is a hint of a whiff of the promise of fall in the air. A cool breeze that flirts shamelessly with you. Humidity so beautifully low you want to try to limbo under it.
In fact, it gets cool enough that you can look at a blanket. Not use it yet, of course. But cool enough to at least look longingly at it and contemplate using it sometime in the near future.
“Absolutely picture perfect day, Kate,” smiles the cute meteorologist from the local news that you definitely don’t have a weird crush on. “So make sure you get out there and enjoy it.”
But just as quickly as the meteorologists giveth, they taketh away.
“This week will be warming up, with potential record breaking heat hitting the area,” he says with his stupid handsome face the next week. “In some places the heat index could reach into the triple digits.”
You sink to your knees in despair. “No! NO!” you cry out. It can’t be. You’ve already done your time! Summer is OVER. You run outside, sure it has to be some kind of mistake. Some cruel, cruel hunky weatherman mistake.
But as air the consistency and temperature of soup envelops your body, you realize with horror that Zack Green of WBZ is actually good at his job.
Stupid, stupid Zack.
No! You can’t do this anymore! The only reason you survived summer was because of the promise of fall at the end of it! Your hair has been in a messy bun on top of your head since the middle of May! Your pores are exhausted from non-stop sweating! And you can’t even look inside your closet, with all your oversized sweatshirts in there looking sad and unslouched because you can’t wrap them around your incredibly poor posture yet.
All the swimsuits and beach towels have already been organized and put away for the season in a still slightly damp pile in the back of the van. Not that you could go swimming even if you wanted to. The pools are closed and all the lifeguards have gone back to wherever really tan and fit people go when summer is over. CrossFit maybe. Or meteorology school. I don’t know! It’s too hot to think!
It can’t last forever, you tell yourself as a small comfort. But then there he is again, standing in front of a map with a dangerously deep color of red splashed across it.
“Well, looks like today will be even hotter,” stupid Zack says. “And tomorrow a heat advisory has been issued. It sure doesn’t feel like fall out there, Kate. Ha ha!”
“Oh, laugh it up, Chuckles, with your stupid perfectly white and straight teeth,” you scream at the TV as your children look on concerned. But you don’t care. You’ve already moved on to researching how much jail time you’ll get for kidnapping someone and forcing them to change the weather forecast.
On and on it continues, each day more miserable than the last. By day five, your family finds you in the kitchen sobbing while cradling your crock pot, mourning your dead dreams of making chili. You can’t make chili when the heat index is 103! It’s wrong! It’s downright unholy!
Your children risk asking you when you’re all going apple picking, which only makes you sob harder. They slowly slink out of the room.
This too shall pass, your stupid reasonable husband tells you, gently removing a ladle from your iron grip. You know he’s right. It will. You allow him to help you off the kitchen floor. Someday the sun won’t shine again. Someday, the clouds will come and people will begin using the word “brisk” again.
Someday stupid attractive Zack will say those three little words you’ve always wanted to hear from him.
“A cold front.”
And all will be right with the world.
That is, until That One Day In October where it’s unseasonably cold and you find yourself sinking to your knees in despair again as you remember winter is on its way.
Chick Writes Stuff 
LOVE THIS ONE! Especially if you’re living around Victoria TX.
If there were a pagan ritual to welcome the first cold front of the season, I’d be tempted to take part in it. I’d stand in the middle of the street with my arms wide open for the first gust of cool air.
I really should consider moving away from the Gulf Coast, but I’d never get used to static shock every time I cross a carpeted room, or get out of the car. Besides, I’ve already made a vow never to live in any part of the world where mockingbirds don’t live.
My homemade ritual to welcome the first cold front is available upon request.
Yes. I’m gonna need that ritual. 😁
Well, since you asked so nicely . . .
When autumn comes, it’s like the breaking of a fever. Of course, here on the Gulf Coast it’s not like we’re breaking out the skis. The trees don’t even change colors, except for the Chinese tallow trees, and they’re a public nuisance. But at least it’s comfortable.
To celebrate, I came up with a home-made ritual to welcome the first cold front of the season.
The head of the household lights a candle and sets it in the front yard if a proper southern porch or veranda is not part of the house structure. A dummy stuffed with straw is set out in supine position and doused with water. The straw represents the effect of unrelenting heat upon the land, while the moisture represents the sweat exuded my billions of sweat gland pores across the Gulf Coast.
The head of the household, standing outside with the most up-to-date forecast possible, chants:
“O Boreas, God of the Northern Wind, do thou have mercy upon your profusely sweating prostrated servants. We have borne the heat of day and are sick and tired of it. Come, then, and defeat our enemy, Zephyrus, God of the Southern Wind, bearer of unendurable heat and humidity.”
Children and other members of the household may be attired in shorts, flip-flops and dirty t-shirts as befitting summer activity which starts in April and lasts through September. A barbecue pit should be fired up with hamburger patties, sausage, chicken halves or brisket on the grill. In the event of a stalled front, the head of the household may read any work from Mark Twain, William Faulkner, Flannery O’Conner or any other notable writer of the South. (Playing country music may be substituted in trailer parks or illiterate households.)
When the first gusts of a Blue Norther blow out the candle, children of the household should pounce upon the dummy, rending it to pieces, ritually destroying the grip of Zephyrus. The dummy, plus the dirty t-shirts, should be thrown on the smoldering embers of the barbecue pit. This signifies that the parents would rather burn their children’s clothing than have to pick it up and wash it.
Needless to say, the meat on the grill has already been removed and set on the table with potato salad and jalapeno peppers, and lots of cold beer. After all, why waste the last good day of summer?