True heat—the overwhelming hot wall that hits you the minute you step out of a door, that takes your breath and makes it into more humidity, that rips the thoughts from your brain and crumples them—is oppressive. It's exhausting. It's unlivable. And it is here.
Starting Friday, a giant hair dryer will be pointed at most of the United States. More than 200 million people are expected to be trapped under a terrible bubble of heat. The Weather Prediction Center is calling this a "significant and extremely dangerous heat wave." And because for most of the Midwest, Great Lakes, Northeast and Mid-Atlantic this spring has been mild and wet, the quick shift to swamp will feel even more brutal. Temperatures will be hot as hell. Humidity will be high enough to curl straight hair. Don't even get me started on the dew point (disgusting). The nights will be muggy and miserable. There will be no wind. It is going to be painful.
Here, in Philadelphia, it is expected to reach 105 degrees on Monday and Tuesday. Awful! Yuck! I did not run away from the state of Texas to be confronted with this kind of misery! I shouldn't be surprised, because human-caused climate change has increased the frequency and intensity of heatwaves over the last 70 years, and the International Panel on Climate Change warns that this trend will continue as the earth warms. But I am surprised, because 105 is a disgusting number and it does not belong up here!
For our safety, I am declaring it INSIDE WEEK IN AMERICA.
This is a week for being inside. We must stay in the shade. We must keep the doors and windows closed. We must go to the grocery store one time this weekend and then barricade ourselves inside. We need only cold things to eat: ice, pasta salad, popsicle, deli meat, string cheese, big tomatoes, chicken salad, watermelon, gazpacho, and avocado.
We need to watch television and read books. People who live closer to the equator know that you cannot fight a real heat wave like this. You cannot power your way through the kind of heat that will kill you. The heat will always win. You must let it win. Everyone who works an outside job should be given the week off to be inside. No outside construction work. No outside dining. No building things. No gardening. No mail carriers. No one is going outside, because it is Inside Week. We don't need to do anything out there. It is too hot. We need to be inside, where it is not trying to kill us as much as possible.
I am forced to go outside sometimes because of my perfect dog who I love very much. But we will be going out only briefly and then coming back to chug water inside. There is nothing for us outside during Inside Week. That's not our business.
