Dog days of summer call for cool cures

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 23/07/2018 (2958 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

What with being the size of a major kitchen appliance, I do not handle the heat especially well.

Which means that I suffer more than most when the mercury soars to the point that birds are bursting into flames in mid-air and our medically important body parts are seared by overheated leather car seats, not that I want to complain or anything.

The important thing to remember during our current mini-heat wave is that you need to develop simple strategies to survive. You also need a lot of deodorant, but that is not today’s safety point.

No, today’s safety point is that you need to have a plan to beat the heat, and everyone in my house has a detailed plan, especially our three dogs.

Our primary dog, a long-haired miniature dachshund named Zoe, ensures her survival via the technique of planting her tiny body in front of the huge rotating fan on the floor of the den, where she will bask in the artificial breeze, which causes her floppy ears to blow back as if she had her head stuck out the window of a moving car.

Our secondary dog, a grumbly ball of white fluff named Bogey (a.k.a. “Mr. X”) bravely spends most of his day in the backyard, but hides from the heat in one of two ways: 1) He finds a shady spot at the side of the house and burrows into the loose soil, turning his underbelly black; or 2) he slides under the walls of our screened tent and flakes out in the shade under a piece of wicker furniture.

Our newest dog, Juno, who resembles a scraggly street urchin with a tongue dangling out the side of her mouth because most of her teeth have been removed, mostly refuses to leave the house, spending the day stretched out precariously on top of the leather sofa in front of our picture window, looking like a four-legged vulture as she snores at the decibel level of a freight train.

In contrast, what with being a crusading, overweight journalist with the ability to work from home, my strategy focuses mainly on spending as much time as possible without wearing pants, which is something the dogs do every day.

I should hasten to point out that the pants-free option is frowned on in most workplaces, but for those of us who are allowed to tap away on their home computers, working sans trousers is a gift from the gods, so to speak.

In my case, I am able to skip pants largely because both of our children are now fully functioning adults and live and work in places where they do not come into daily contact with their dad, who is such a doofus that, when they were kids, they would burst into flames if they were seen with me in public.

The only problem with not wearing pants is that our “home office” is on the main floor and visible from the picture window, which means the postman and/or random members of religious groups who knock on our door may get more than they expected.

So I am not recommending a pants-free environment for everyone, regardless of how hot it gets in the coming days. What I am recommending is a slightly more extreme strategy that I have been experimenting with because I am sick and tired of sweating like Donald Trump at a Grade 3 spelling bee.

I discovered this technique because my wife, She Who Must Not Be Named, recently purchased a pair of electric coolers, which are like regular beer coolers, except you can plug them into a wall socket or your car instead of filling them with ice.

In a sincere and humanitarian effort to reduce my core temperature, I plugged these coolers in and then, with no regard for personal safety, stepped into them as if they were a huge, square pair of rubber boots.

If you have never tried this, the main benefit is that it cools your feet down to penguin levels almost immediately. On the negative side, if you attempt to move, you will sound like Frankenstein’s monster shuffling along the kitchen floor, and your cool shoes will almost instantly come unplugged, unless you have used one of those outdoor extension cords, which your wife will not approve of.

Speaking of wives, you will be shocked to hear my wife was not impressed when she wandered into the kitchen and found me testing out the radical concept of “electric cooler shoes.” We had the following unhelpful conversation:

My wife: “What the (bad word) are you doing?”

Me: “I’m experimenting with ways to keep cool.”

My wife: “You look like an idiot.”

Me: “I know, but at least my feet aren’t sweating.”

For the most part, I am trying to avoid being burned to a crisp by spending as much time as possible floating in our kiddie pool on steroids, which is basically a giant rubber bag surrounded by an inflatable ring.

Most days you can find me floating in this thing with my pasty flesh supported by a humongous pool toy — an electric green inflatable Gummy Bear — that I bought a few years ago when I agreed to jump into the Arctic Ocean as part of the Ultimate Polar Plunge in support of Special Olympics Manitoba.

I would have worn the electric coolers in the pool, too, but the extension cords wouldn’t reach. In the name of science, my wife says she’s willing to buy some longer ones.

doug.speirs@freepress.mb.ca