Best Summer Ever? Not To Me It Was

With Labor Day ended, it is the unofficial Death Of Summer.  Saw on Channel 11 something I have heard off and on over the past few months: This has been The Greatest Summer In The History Of The Twin Cities.

In these past reports I heard of something called the Summer Glory Index, which is a direct reflection of the Winter Misery Index.  I don't remember the criteria, but I know a couple of the raw facts and general conditions that led some people to celebrate the past season: Only four days of temperatures in the nineties; humidity relatively in check for most of the summer; not many really bad outbreaks of severe weather; and as of press time only 3% of the state in any level of drought, and even that is only at the mildest level, Abnormally Dry.

Those facts taken together are indeed signs of a very great, tolerable summer.  But that wasn't exactly the summer I experienced.  Oh no.  Not to say that I found it to be completely unbearable.  Summer, while being the main break in the year for me and as for everyone else in the United States (which was probably ingrained in us from school), still has never been completely compatible to me.  For one thing, I hate hot weather; even though I know we have had much sweltering seasons in years past, I still couldn't deal with it most days this year.  Also, my allergies are making a late-summer comeback to bother me.  It's not so much my nose as it is my eyes; for the past few weeks, especially in the hours where I am not on my allergy nasal spray, I have been scratching my eyeballs furiously, and I know I've been walking around with red eyes in the evening.

Finally, and most importantly, the one really bad instance of shitty weather this summer hit me like a punch right in the nose.  It was that goddamn hailstorm that damaged my car.  Cost me $500 in deductibles, $500 I sorely need now that I'm not working.  In that sense I'm not the only one bitter not to share in The Greatest Summer In The History Of The Twin Cities: The folks up in the Brainerd Lakes area had a hellacious storm tear through their area, causing all sorts of damage that still has yet to be completely cleaned up.  They, like me, will not bask in the glory of what factually was a fantastic summer because one specific event skewed it to something memorable for all the wrong reasons.