Heat Wave Offers Only Comic Relief : Weather: Residents swelter as air conditioners conk out, tempers flare and temperatures soar into the 90s.

No matter where you were, no matter what you were doing, you did not feel Friday’s heat as much as Phillip Parks did.

People throughout Orange County sweltered as air conditioners conked out, tempers flared and temperatures nosed into the 90s.

But poor Mr. Parks--his sweat glands should have been cited for indecent exposure.

There he stood on a shadeless street corner across from Huntington State Beach, wearing a full-body, fire-retardant, polyester Gumby suit.

“Just got to suck it up, call it a good workout,” he panted through the costume’s teeny mesh air hole. “I want to make it big; that’s why I’m doing this. I want a producer to go by and give me a chance!”

During summer’s first heat wave, which is expected to last at least through Sunday, some thought Parks odd, but he considered himself a genius.

The costume, he said, was meant to draw attention to a big sign promoting a local fitness club.

And draw attention it did. Motorists who stopped at the traffic signal shot glances at Parks--then locked their doors.

Scott Hern, the fitness club manager, drove by about 4 p.m. Asked if it wasn’t cruel and inhuman punishment to zip a man into a forest-green suit on one of the hottest days of the year, Hern’s response was a blithe, blase “Pfff.”

“At least he’s got an ocean breeze,” said Hern, who paid Parks minimum wage for the 10-hour shift.

Miles away, at the Santa Ana Zoo, other green creatures showed more sense.

The iguana and the snake kept to the shade, and the sheep were fast asleep. Toucans in the rain forest exhibit took care to stay cool, as did Henry Kawka (pronounced KAF-ka), who would like you to know that, despite what your internal temperature gauge told you, Friday was not hot, but hott ish .

“I remember years ago it was 100 degrees for two weeks in a row,” he proclaimed. “People were quitting their jobs it was so hot. . . . This isn’t hot. It’s warm. It’s a little humid. When it gets in the 90s, everybody thinks it’s hot. But when it gets into the 100s, then we got hot.”

In fact, some meteorologists supported Kawka’s observation.

Sporadic breezes kept Orange County cooler and less smoggy than other Southern California locales Friday. Thermal and Death Valley, for instance, actually flirted with the nation’s all-time record high of 134 degrees.

Even so, those beads of sweat sluicing down your neck were not imaginary.

“It’s hotter than you’re used to,” said Curtis Brack, a meteorologist for WeatherData Inc.

No duh, said zoo-goer Jessica Santibanez, 11.

“It’s torrid,” she said.

“It’s hotter than getting out of a hot shower,” said 7-year-old Erin Seddor.

It was so hot that 9-year-old Erin Dupape needed to let off some steam during a summer-school field trip to the zoo.

Relentlessly, she trained her considerable power to annoy on 21-year-old Larry Hyatt and 19-year-old Allison Clark, the field trip chaperons.

In a scene that eerily recalled the Garden of Eden, Dupape hung snakelike from the branch of a tree and begged Hyatt and Clark to “make out.”

She thought a little grown-up romance might distract her from the rising mercury.

“My next-door neighbor has a boyfriend,” Dupape pleaded, “and she kissed his navel right in front of me!”

Blushing mightily, Clark checked her watch: two more hours until she could drop Dupape back at Garden Grove Christian School.

“It’s too hot to deal with these little ankle-biters,” she said under her breath.

Only one thing to do on such a day, said 10-year-old Jena Goodlander: stand in front of an “air freshener.”

No air fresheners in the appliance department at South Coast Plaza’s Sears store--but they managed to keep plenty busy.

Michael Walters, an air conditioner salesman with an exceedingly cool manner, summarized his sales strategy this way:

“Just look for the real sweaty people.”

It ain’t Willy Loman, but it’ll do.

While you were cursing Friday’s heat, Walters was kissing the sky--he works on straight commission.

But while Walters was crowing about the heat, a deliveryman accidentally dropped an air conditioner on the floor.

Kuh-pow. The machine made a terrific clatter before coming to rest against a refrigerator.

“What, are you bringing me a damaged one?” Walters snapped.

Then, like the air after a summer shower, his expression softened.

“Ha. Just stick it with the others. It’ll sell.”