Heat Wave? Who the heck cares about a heat wave? I live in Florida, for Pete’s sake.
That was my response when people warned me about my trip to Washington D.C. “You know it’s hot up there,” they said.
“Oh, jeez, really,” I replied. “Not chilly like it is down here.”
“Be careful,” said my mother. “Take short, shallow breaths and try to wear as few clothes as you can. Eat a lot of ice and just remember, you grew up without air conditioning. Oh, and if you start to blackout on the street, don’t fall in some garbage. Look for a park bench. You don’t want to get a disease.”
Good advice, mom, good advice. I’ll just try to walk around naked and only on streets with benches.
I was in the nation’s capitol for a college media conference during the height of the Northeast heat wave. It was hot. It was excruciatingly hot. It was melt-the-lipstick-off-your-face-hot, and I don’t even wear lipstick.
My clothes stuck to me so bad it looked like I was wearing shrink wrap and I think I baked my liver.
But the heat didn’t stop me from traveling around on my free time. As a new dad, I got caught up in the memories of when I was little and my father went to a conference in D.C. He came back with stories of the Smithsonian with its towering rockets on display, its history-making jets hanging from ceilings and the bones of giant T-Rexes prowling the halls of the Museum of Natural History. I always pictured them snagging a French fry out of the hands of an unsuspecting child.
He brought us back loot that he found in the museum shops, and in particular, I’ll never forget the space ice cream he picked up — a block of Neapolitan that was freeze-dried in a colorful foil wrapper. That was what the astronauts ate for dessert on voyages into space. Chalky, and not unlike the centers of malted milk balls, it melted in your mouth and in many ways was quite horrible. But for my brother and I, it was the coolest thing in the world. Astronauts ate this crap! Now we get to! Did you bring us a freeze-dried salad, too? What about freeze-dried toilet paper?
While my daughter is far too young to ever remember my trip to D.C., I still decided to make my pilgrimage to the two great museums of rocket ships and dinosaurs, then bring her back something. So on the first day there, I slogged through the 10 overheated blocks to the mall, panting with the other poor tourists who were bursting into flames at regular intervals and then racing to the street vendors to buy $2.50 bottles of water to put themselves out.
Like a man determined — as if I was trudging through snow, as if I was climbing Mt. Everest — I steamed ahead, shedding clothing along the way until I reached the cool haven of the Smithsonian’s free-to-all air conditioning.
I think I saw rockets and I think I saw dinosaurs, but it was all such a blur — a heat-stroke induced mirage it could have been — that I barely remember it. A stegosaurus here, a moon lander there and quite possibly a troop of wild purple baboons raiding the snack bar while wearing baseball caps.
Tired, exhausted and panting like a dog, I called it a day and headed for the gift shop. Time to begin a tradition. I bought my daughter a stuffed monkey with long arms and a baby wrapped around its neck. She’s too young for space ice cream, and besides, it probably just would have melted as I headed back to the hotel and passed out on the street.