I gots to chill

by RAF KATIGBAK

By the time you read this, some of my friends will notice that I will have stopped calling. Texts will fill my phone unread and my Facebook page will be creepily inactive—no new links to videos of kittens getting themselves into hilarious situations or remixes of that Retail Rage guy. Eventually colleagues will wonder why I haven’t returned their e-mails and the guys from my weekly Star Wars Fan Fiction club will wonder why I didn’t attend this week’s meeting—especially since I was slated to present my latest erotic piece, Leia & Porkins’ Delicate Adventures. Eventually they will post inquiries on my Facebook wall as to where I’ve been hiding and why I haven’t returned that Coronation Street DVD box set. Soon they will be ringing my doorbell and mulling around outside craning their necks in an attempt to see what’s going on. But they won’t find me. My apartment will remain eerily quiet. But really, if they wanted to see me, they’d just have to go down the block, where I have moved all of my most cherished belongings into my new home: the icy cool comfort of the walk-in beer fridge of my neighbourhood depanneur.

I don’t deal with heat very well. As the temperature rises, I feel IQ points drop from my brain, and as the city looks down the barrel of a week of ungodly heat, I for one am seeking refuge any way that I can. Now, I hate to join the masses of Montrealers that complain about any and all weather, but c’mon, this is just ridiculous.

Yes, I come from tropical blood, but over the years, exposure to winter has made me soft and now, if I feel so much as a drop of sweat from humidity, I immediately collapse until someone starts misting me back to life. It got really bad earlier this week. I work next to a fish packing plant and on the blistering gauntlet that was my lunch walk, a large piece of ice fell from a delivery truck onto the sidewalk. Yes, that hunk of ice was covered in dirt, saw dust, fish juice and smelled like when I left that ham sandwich in my gym bag for a week, but damn it if I didn’t want to just pick it up and rub it all over my face to escape the torturous heat.

As I sit and wait for the impending Hydro blackout that will occur from everyone running their air conditioners, I’ve made it my mission to document my experiences trying out various ways I’ve heard of to stay cool.

Putting on a wet t-shirt and sit in front of a fan Despite feeling like a sorority girl on spring break, this wet t-shirt thing was surprisingly effective and fun, until I realized that the water I used was too cold and I ended up getting slight hypothermia.

Putting rubbing alcohol on my face Apparently evaporating alcohol is supposed to make your skin feel like it’s actually much cooler. That is until you accidentally get it in your eyes and it feels like Satan is peeing on your face.

Don’t get drunk Alcohol is a diuretic which, when I looked it up, did not mean that it gives you superhuman strength and makes you extremely attractive to the opposite sex, as I hoped, but rather it means that it makes you take a whizz more often—which promotes dehydration. For once, alcohol is not the answer.

Eating spicy foods The idea behind this is that hot foods raise your body temperature, causes you to sweat and cools down your body. Not one to go half-assed, I went to the nearest Thai grocery, found the hottest sauce they had and doused my food with it. I spent the next hour on the can doubled over with explosive diarrhea and head-rushing with so many endorphins that I tripped out thinking a dragon was trying to escape from my bowels. I guess the good news is I forgot all about the heat. So um, I guess it worked.

Public pools Not only can I not swim and any attempt to do so has often resulted in people remarking that I resemble a panic-stricken dog, but I can’t think of anything grosser than getting into a small area filled with water and other people’s liquid. No thanks!

So that’s all I’ve managed to do so far, dear readers. If any of you out there have any creative ways of staying cool that don’t involve buying an air conditioner or burning your face with rubbing alcohol, I’m all ears. Until then I’m just gonna put my feet up on this couch I’ve made of Molson Ex two-fours.