I’m steamed with all this talk about the heat

Don’t say it.

Please, please don’t say it. My wife has just come in from her morning walk and she’s dripping with sweat, her cheeks a shade of red that generally indicates a rise in body temperature or copious consumption of alcohol. It’s not impossible, but highly unlikely she’s been doing shots at 7 a.m.

Still, she doesn’t have to... “Man, it’s hot outside.” Goddamn it.

The recent warm spell has turned everyone into incessant weather commentators, fixated on the rising temperatures and the nuances of the dreaded humidex. Apparently, it’s important to know not just how hot it is, but also how hot it feels.

It feels, hot. Full stop.

Like any Canadian, I enjoy obsessing and commenting on the weather. I pride myself on my layering skills, my fashionable array of UV-defeating hats and all-terrain, all-climate footwear. In this country, we get it all and I can throw snowballs or throw around the Frisbee at the beach with equal aplomb.

But while we seem mentally equipped to deal with the cold stuff — it is part of our Canadian identity, after all — it feels like hot weather throws us for a collective loop, short-circuiting our brains to the point where it’s all we can talk about.

See a neighbour on the street, you’re talking about the weather. Call your mom on the phone and you know it’s coming. Make small talk with a cashier in the grocery store and they’ll ask if it’s still hot outside, as if they are yearning to escape the air-conditioned bliss of their workplace.

As a mildly overweight Canadian and a prestigious producer of perspiration since my teenage years, the current climate conditions do me no favours. And yet I strive not to complain about it, if only because I can still pretty much do all the things I like to do outside. I might be a hot and sticky mess afterwards, but that’s fine.

The same cannot be said for minus 30 in February with two feet of snow on the ground: I cannot ride my bike, go for a run, BBQ steak, play golf or just sit on my deck and drink beer in those conditions (well, I can but it requires sophisticated layering.) Instead, I usually just stare out my window and wish it was really, really hot outside.

So let’s stop talking about the weather and do our best to enjoy it. Winter is coming to give all of us something to really complain about.