Grab your Jacket! It's Going to Be a Hot One Today!

I love when the weatherman says, “well, it’s 98 degrees outside - - but it feels like 112 degrees with the heat index!” Can you tell me that your body can actually discern the difference between 98 and 112 degrees? I have my doubts. It’s not as if 98 degrees is passable, but 112? Well that’s just out of the question! I think August is the time of year when God decides to have a laugh at all those people who kept complaining about the heat in July.

One thing I can’t understand about the heat is the way that some restaurants and businesses respond – their power bills must be enormous! I understand wanting to keep customers happy with a cool environment, but it seems that all too often, during these hot summer days, I sit and shiver in a restaurant when I go to eat a meal. I have taken to leaving a light-weight jacket in my car to put on when we enter a restaurant and it is set on “North Pole.”


I had meetings for work last week at the Hilton Hotel in Springfield. It was so cold in the rooms that you could have hung meat. I was glad I had my little jacket with me in my car - - - it wasn’t exactly flattering over my business attire, but it did keep me from shaking from cold all day long. I am not usually a coffee drinker, but I had coffee with my lunch, simply to warm up a little bit. I would imagine that the amount of money spent to run the air conditioning for the summer in some of these places is enough to feed and clothe the inhabitants of a small, third-world country for days on end.

I notice that it always seems to bother the women a lot more than it does the men. My husband is never as affected by cold restaurants that way I am. Our conversation usually goes like this:
Me: It is really cold in here (as I start to shiver)
Him: It feels good in here to me.

This is a common conversation throughout the summer for us. I notice that I am not alone though. Take a look around the next time you go to a restaurant. Many of the women sit and rub their arms to keep warm, or bring a sweater because they know it will be so cold. Most of the time, the men seem blissfully unaware of the Arctic-like conditions.

One summer while I was in college, I worked for DHS (Dept. of Health & Human Services). It was so cold in that office building that many of the women actually had space heaters under their desks because it was so frigid in there. Complaints about the freezing conditions had gone unheard, so they took matters into their own hands - - - every day, they would enter the office and don sweaters and crank up their portable heaters. When it was time for our break in the morning and afternoon, it was not uncommon to hear someone say, "Time to go outside and defrost!"