Basic B*tch

Wasn’t the heatwave awful?

Do you remember the heatwave? Me neither. It’s hard to imagine that there was a time, not so long ago, that we longed for clouds and dreamt of rain. But it happened. And as summer draws to a close, and ‘back to school’ becomes less and less of an abstract theory, we are at risk of this collective amnesia ruining our enjoyment of our more natural habitat — autumn.

This year, science proved something that after June/July, we all suspected: heat turns us into assholes. Scientists found that level of cortisol, the stress hormone, rises in the summer.

Dr Dominika Kanikowska, who led the team, was surprised, “These findings contradict traditional concepts of the taxing physical toll of winter and the relaxed ease of summer.” Oh, Dominika, really?

No one is relaxed when they have to ask, “God, is it actually too hot for a cup of tea?”. No one is at ease when they are slick with sunscreen.

You see, the heat made me believe that I hated Bae. Or, if I didn’t hate him, that I hated every little thing he did. I was too hot. Every word he uttered made me want to murder him. Too. Hot. I couldn’t stand being in the same room as him; the knowledge that he might be breathing some of the scarce air was too much. Hot. I resented his presence in the bed, meaning the fan had to oscillate rather than be trained on my shiny, red, livid face. It was hot. The simplest household tasks became Herculean in the dank crucible of the highly insulated flat; the normal division of labour fell apart. I hated him. Hot. Too hot.

You remember it too. You remember begrudging the other hot people whose heat made you feel hotter. You remember the short fuses, the abject horror of public transport, the arguments about salady bits for dinner again.

We had the sun. It didn’t work. For the sake of our relationships, let’s welcome September with open, cardigan-ed arms. And to anyone I met in the month of June: I’m sorry. I was hot.