Don’t sweat it, step inside love
Pity the poor people of Adelaide baking in 46.2-degree heat. And that’s not the only part of the lucky country suffering from oppressive heat conditions. Nightly weather reports on the television colour the huge continent of Australia an angry orange red. Heart-breaking photographs of brumbies dead from dehydration illustrate how serious the problem is.
Our cuzzie bros and bras from across the ditch must be perusing the real estate pages in New Zealand and planning their great escape from the big burn.
Like most Kiwis, I have a lot of expat friends living in Australia and have spent hours on the blower listening to boasts about how warm and sunny it is up their end of the canoe.
When I’ve tried talking them into coming home they’ve said sorry, but they’ve acclimatised and just couldn’t stand the cold. My retaliation has been to warn them that in a couple of years they will be desperate to get back to where they once belonged when the sunburnt country burns up. And verily it has come to pass.
But one shouldn’t be smug. On the day some parts of Christchurch were experiencing 33 degrees, I was walking the pavement rushing from one shade spot to the next when I passed a liquor store. The air outside felt like a jockey’s sweat box so I nipped in and headed straight for that wonderful oasis, the cool store where the beer is located.
And I hate beer. I stood there like a shag on a rock with my wings spread out and legs apart. I wasn’t the only one. There were two young mums in there cooling off their hot and bothered infants, and they weren’t buying beer either.
If I was in charge of that outlet’s sandwich boards I would have writ large ‘‘Calling all hotties, come in and cool down in our cool store!’’ You could even sell tickets. It’s the same in supermarkets and banks where the workers tell you that after another night sweating the sheets, they so look forward to going to work where the air conditioner is full on, and they’re not footing the power bill.
Who would’ve thought cool space would become such an inducement and one of the fringe benefits of working for the man.
The day it hit 33 then plummeted to 10 at night I pulled the chair up to a sash front window in a high-ceilinged room and observed the drama as the menacing front of bad weather showed up and aggressively pushed its way across the sky. Who needs Sky TV when you’ve got the real stuff happening as branches, wheely bins and garden furniture scrambled into each other, and what looked like a sheet wrenched from a washing line tore down the street.
They say it has nothing to do with the super moon but this mad weather has happened in its wake and there are two more set to show up before the end of March.
In the wee hours when the humidity gets too much, you can hear people out on their verandas talking quietly as they cool down. It’s like being in one of those American movies set in the south where the soft power goes down in conversations on a porch swing.
One friend says she gets up and plunges her feet into a bucket of cold water before diving back into the pit. Another swears by chucking a couple of panty liners in the freezer for a few minutes before shoving them down her bra and undies. I tell her this reminds of a Primmer 2 joke: ‘‘What did Cilla Black say when she pulled down her underpants?’’ Answer: ‘‘Step inside love.’’