Meltdown in a heat wave
“I THINK THE Merlot should come inside,” I tell my wife.
“Might be too late,” she says.
The Merlot has been sitting in the garage, normally a cool enough spot for the bargain red wines we prefer (Try ‘em on pancakes!)
But lately, the temperature has reached about 200 degrees, forcing the beer fridge to work extra hard and doing lord-knows-what to the three bottles of wine on the garage’s concrete floor.
“We should put them in the basement,” I say.
“We have a basement?” one of the kids asks.
Yeah, it’s that little room under the house where we store your mother’s 700 boxes of Christmas ornaments. There’s a beat-up old tool bench and coaching plaques from 15 years of selfless service. My won-loss record is pretty spotty, but they give you a plaque every year anyway. You know, to show their sincere appreciation.
The basement is full of such treasures. There’s a scratchy radio that I use to listen to ballgames while refinishing some bedside table. For quick naps, there’s an old recliner the shade of stone-ground mustard.
It’s almost perfect, this basement. If I could just get a few bottles of wine down there ...
“We’d never see the wine again,” my wife predicts.
“Exactly,” I say.
Gotta keep the fluids up. On Tuesday, the shingles on the roof melted together like a giant grilled cheese sandwich. On Thursday, a patio fern we’ve had for 15 years began to turn brown.
Too hot for ferns? This one had survived drought, neglect, bad dinner parties and lots and lots of ambient yelling. Our house is famous for a volume level that approaches the Red Sox locker room. It’s a loud yet loving environment.
The point is: If a fern can’t make it, what hope is there for the rest of us? Does God bother about hell anymore? Because this summer, hell has come to us.
So we take all the usual precautions. We make sure the pets have extra water. We insist -- INSIST! -- that the kids refrain from any yard work. This triggers immediate disappointment. They are obsessive about their chores. It’s the way they were raised.
“Just move away from the mower,” I say.
“But Dad!”
“You heard me. Stay away!”
Because of the heat, I even take a break from my own backyard construction project (Big Dig II). I move inside, where I spend the weekend repainting the little girl’s bathroom, an airless tomb, a tile prison.
As I roll the walls, I remember telling the contractor, “No, we don’t really need a window in there,” and now I’m paying the price. In minutes, I’m woozy from fumes. It reminds me of the buzz I had at a Blood, Sweat & Tears concert in 1973. I was always partial to horn bands.
“Maybe you should turn on the vent fan,” my wife suggests when she sees me woozy.
“There’s a fan?” I ask.
Normally, I am the Degas of bathroom painting, with wistful shadings of light and color. But the sticky weather makes this drudgery. The paint is too clumpy, like chowder right out of the can.
“Father, would you like some help?” the little girl asks in a British accent.
That’s all I need right now, some chirpy Julie Andrews.
“Why are you talking all British?” I ask.
“She’s been watching ‘The Parent Trap,’ ” her big brother explains.
“Wanna paint?” I tell her. “Put on some old clothes.”
“But father, I have no old clothes,” she says with an old-money lilt.
“GET SOME!” I yell.
I feel like a guy about to perish in a French dungeon, here in this windowless bathroom, fumes everywhere. I kitty-cat my spine to catch that little corner of ceiling over the tub. Ugh, if only I can reach a little farther...a little farther ...
“Wanna sing?” the toddler asks, startling me.
“Sing?” I say. “It’s too hot to ... “
And he launches into a version of what sounds like “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus,” accompanying himself on a toy ukulele with one broken string. Because it’s a bathroom, he sounds pretty good. Just imagine if he had all four strings.
“I like the way you started softly,” I say, “then finished big.”
“Wanna sing?” he asks again.
And before I can respond, he launches into what sounds like John Prine’s “Forbidden Jimmy,” but turns out to be “Take Me Out to the Ballgame,” a pleasant little ditty about going outside to watch a ballgame.
“It’s 108!” someone yells from the next room.
“That’s all?” I ask, as the toddler launches into “White Christmas.”
“Tomorrow is supposed to be cooler,” someone announces.
Cooler? Like, 106? Maybe 104? I’m looking forward to that.
I might have to put on a sweater.
