Hot Enough to Make a Grown Man Cry

There are hot days, and then there are the kind of hot days like we had last week that make you question whether the sun has a personal grudge against you. I’m talking about the kind of heat where the air feels thick enough to spread on toast, and stepping outside feels like opening the oven to check on a casserole you forgot about.

It was one of those days. The kind where the weather app doesn’t even bother giving you a number. It just says “Good luck.”

I had to run an errand, which was my first mistake. I should have stayed inside, stretched out under a ceiling fan, and accepted that productivity was for cooler climates. But no, I decided to be responsible. I walked out to my car, and the moment I opened the door, a blast of heat hit me so hard I thought I’d been slapped by a dragon.

The steering wheel was approximately the temperature of molten lava. I tried to grab it with my bare hands, immediately regretted it, and ended up driving with my fingertips like I was performing some kind of delicate surgery. The seat belt buckle was hot enough to brand cattle. I touched it once and saw my ancestors.

By the time I made it to the store, I was sweating in places I didn’t know I had places. I walked through the automatic doors like a man crawling into an oasis. The air conditioning hit me so hard I almost wept. I lingered in the frozen foods aisle longer than any human being has ever needed to linger near a bag of peas.

But the real trouble started when I got back outside. I loaded my groceries, shut the trunk, and realized I had locked my keys inside the car. In the heat. With the ice cream. And possibly my sanity.

I stood there staring at the car like it had betrayed me. Sweat was running down my back in rivers. My shirt was sticking to me like it was trying to escape. I could feel the sun watching me, amused.

I called a locksmith. He said he’d be there “in about twenty minutes,” which is heat‑stroke math for “you’re going to melt before I arrive.” I sat on the curb, fanning myself with a grocery receipt, wondering if this was how it all ended.

When he finally showed up, he took one look at me and said, “Hot enough for you?”

I didn’t answer. I didn’t have the strength. I just nodded like a man who had been through something.

He popped the door open in ten seconds flat. My ice cream was soup. My dignity was gone. My will to live was questionable.

Every year I forget how hot it gets. Every year I think I can handle it. And every year the sun reminds me that I am, in fact, a delicate indoor creature who should not be left unattended in extreme temperatures.

But at least I learned something. Next time the forecast says “feels like the surface of the sun,” I’m staying home. The world can wait. My ice cream can’t.