Warm Weather: Game Over

Friday afternoon I donned a pair of shorts and sandals for the first time this year. Well, not for the first time, but for the first time outside. In public. And I listened to Kenny Chesney. It's officially summer.

Every Spring I wait until the thermometer breaks 60. I stare at it like a kid trying to stay home from school, urging that mercury to creep over the Awesome line. For the kid its 98.7. For me it's 60.

Unfortunately for me, this is a boundary that once crossed cannot be uncrossed. Recrossed? Whatever. Next week it could be forty degrees. I'm still in shorts and flipflops.

Unfortunately for everyone else, come mid-October my minimal melanin retreats faster than your penis after seeing a picture of Sarah Jessica Parker and is replaced by anti-melanin, which makes me whiter. By the time the Summer Boundary is crossed, you can see the veins through my skin. On sunny days my skin glimmers like a vampire (dammit...that a Twilight reference. I blame my girlfriend), and you better wear sunglasses when you look at me. Last summer I didn't have a summer. I was in Iraq, and basically wore long sleeves the entire time. That means two years with no sunlight. I'm almost invisible.

The other side effect of crossing the Summer Boundary is an increased desire to achieve nothing and drink everything. These two I will have to fight, because I really need to be employed, and I'm kind of fond of my liver.