“Is this David?” It was Aunt Monica calling from Wisconsin.
“Hey, Aunt Monica. What’s up? Did something happen? Is Uncle Joe okay?”
“We’re all fine. I just wanted to hear your voice.” She was lying. Every winter I call to brag about how beautiful our weather is here in Tucson. It was her turn. “So how’s the weather today, Mr. Sunshine?”
“It’s a little warm.”
“It’s 73 degrees here.”
“I’m happy for you.”
“Yup. Just another gorgeous Wisconsin day. We’re all outside, sitting on the porch enjoying our iced teas and the breeze off the lake. Couldn’t be nicer. I heard you’ve had a couple of scorchers. NPR said it was 112 degrees.”
“It was 110.”
“Al Roker said 112 degrees.”
“Well, Aunt Monica, we just sacrificed a gila monster and we read its entrails and they say it’s 110.”
“You poor things.”
“We’re fine. We love the heat.”
Aunt Monica told me I must be suffering from heatstroke.
“I’m serious. I love the summer heat. It’s awesome.”
She questioned my sanity. I told her how I like to feel the warm sunshine on my face and shoulders. It’s like a hot massage.
“Really?”
“Really!” I told her how I like to drive with the windows down because I like the feel of a blowtorch burning the flesh off my skull.
Long silence.
“Driving is a real pleasure in the middle of summer. It’s like rolling down the road strapped into a broiler oven. I love it! You sweat so much the front seat becomes a Slip’N Slide.”
Aunt Monica said my maniacal laughter was “disturbing.”
“I love the summer heat! I love the way the cicadas’ incessant buzzing burrows into your ears with a sound like a belt grinder in Hell’s machine shop. The ‘A’ on ‘A’ Mountain has melted into a ‘w.’ The Catalinas have been bleached gray, every saguaro is holding a parasol and I’m growing horns.”
Aunt Monica was concerned that I’d been spending too much time outdoors. “You should see a doctor.”
“Ha, ha, ha. I’m fine, Monica. Did I tell you I made a chaise lounge out of solar oven reflectors? I like to lay in it until I hear bacon sizzling. After my last sunburn I peeled off an entire husk of myself. It’s hanging in my closet next to the other skin peels. I’m telling you this place is paradise when the temperatures are rising! Come see for yourself!”
She declined.
“Your loss! This time of year is the best time to be here! Every time the sun sets the horizon catches on fire. It’s spectacular! Last weekend Gates Pass was totally incinerated and little Mattie’s head spontaneously combusted when it was nipped by an errant solar flare.”
Aunt Monica asked me if I was taking my meds.
“Nope. Just daily walks. Mid-day. I love the heat! Sucks the life out of every living creature. It’s cleansing. Purifying. Some people pay corporate trainers thousands of dollars to master the art of walking on coals. Here you can master the same skills fetching the daily mail in your bare feet. As soon as my hooves heal I’ll be ready to audition for Riverdance.”
“Hooves?”
“Yeah. By mid-June we all grow horns and hooves. Hey, did I tell you that summer is our autumn?”
“What are you talking about?”
“Our sunburns are red, the dead leaves are brown, and the shriveled prickly pear have all turned gold.”
At this point she mentioned the cold watermelon they were enjoying. Along with that cool breeze off the lake. Again.
“Sorry. Can’t compare with Tucson cuisine in the summer. Nothing tastes better in the summertime than a piping hot pizza freshly baked on a manhole cover, served with a side of broiled scorpions and a mug of lava. Did you know that salsa makes sunscreen taste better?”
Aunt Monica thought I needed a vacation.
“And leave this? There’s no better time of year for burning mesquite chips in my fire pit and stirring the embers with my pitchfork like a demon cast down into Hell, stoking and sifting the brimstone and lava. I like the summer heat so much that last week I did a sweat lodge in a parka and ski pants. In an empty parking lot on Speedway. At one in the afternoon. The EMTs ruined everything.”
She said she was going to fly here in the morning. “I’m going to see to it that you get the help you need.”
It’s too bad she hung up. I was going to tell her how I paid Virgin Galactic to fly me to the sun so I could rub my face in its flaming surface and give it a big kiss. And yes, Aunt Monica, I was smart enough to pack Chapstick.
Summer in Tucson. It’s the best.
