After months battling the wind and slipping on icy sidewalks, summer is finally here in NYC (Spring does not exist) and you're...still miserable. Sure, there's tons of free events and Vitamin D and a million other reasons to get out of bed. But, all of that is blighted by these 10 things:
1. The Subway:
Oh, the humanity! Sweaty, angry people surging at you like greasy projectiles! Delays! Tourists! The broken metro card machine and the MTA worker who looks like an ax murderer. The subway is always awful, but it is infernal in the summer. Your only relief is found in the air conditioned train itself, where you’re promptly penned in like a sheep with a bad attitude. But it's so refreshing that you almost don’t mind the backpack in your face and the bicycle handle up your butt.
2. Staying in the city:
Do the Hamptons exist? Fire Island? Maine? I wouldn’t know! The closest I get to summering is lounging on a ciggarette butted patch of brown sand at Coney Island with a Nathan’s Hot Dog in one hand and a stress ball in the other. How do I get there? The subway! My parents met on Fire Island in summer ‘87. It’s the beginning of my creation myth. Emphasize myth.
3. The stink:
Dog poop, sweat, BO, garbage and flatulence, when heated to a certain degree, combine for a mutant funk akin to a rotting carcass. Which I might be smelling too. Crime is up.
4. Tourists:
Move! Move! You can’t walk 10 abreast on a crowded street! You’re not in Kansas anymore! You’re not seeing Hamilton! Lin Manuel Miranda does not care about you! Get out! Come back for Christmas.
5. No central air:
My poor pathetic, little air conditioner. I’m riding it hard. It cools about five percent of my tiny apartment. Still, I cozy up to it like its my last buddy in the foxhole.
6. The humidity:
If I hear “its not the heat it's the humidity” one more time I’m going to blow and turn into a steaming pile of jello. Of course the humidity is the problem, just as wind chill is in the winter. It's like being lubricated with toxic waste. Zaps all energy and clarity. Communication is shot. The only phrase you can convey with any confidence is, "IT'S NOT THE HEAT IT'S THE HUMIDITY".
7. Collective Irritability:
Even if you happen, against all odds, to begin the day calm, the irritation around you is palpable. Someone’s mad! Someone’s overheated! Someone aint going to take this shit no more! A screeching baby, barking dog and honking car are all raring for a rumble!
8. Nearly naked people:
If you had any doubt beautiful people are beautiful summer erases it. This is their three months and don't you forget it. Sure, the other nine months are pretty lovely for them too, but this is their apex. And in New York, they're EVERYWHERE, a horde of sexy zombies. You and a beautiful person are sort of equal in a puffy parka. But in the summer, there is nowhere left to hide.
9. Looking at furry dogs left outside:
It must be 30 degrees hotter for Fido! He’s covered in fur! How does he take it? Where’s his owner? Bastard! If we were together, Fido, I’d give you a nice cold bath every night! Every night! Just you and me. Call the ASPCA!
10. It goes by too fast:
Just before you’ve gotten sand out of every orifice, it's labor day. All of the beautiful people from the Hamptons, Maine and Fire Island converge like tanned locusts. It's over! A millennial waxing about sweaters and pumpkin spice lattes makes you long for everything I just complained about. Maybe it’s not so bad after all.
