The Long Hot Summer

Around the neighborhood the ‘Long Hot Summer’ seems to have come early with ‘The Heat Of The Night.’ Actually it cools off at night but the phenomenon is taking place during the day. Must be that tempers are flaring, tension is bubbling over and stress is slithering along the fence rails.

In this little quiet cul-de-sac something or someone (I believe) is tampering with our drinking water or our emotions. The long hot summer has officially not even started. Perhaps the downward spiral of the economy is affecting our relationships. Right now I can count (on my fingers) the neighbors who are succumbing to the long hot summer in the heat of the night that is really during the day. The number 6 comes to mind including our household.

I have been trying to run through the house shutting all doors and windows so the dirty laundry is not aired for public views. Sometimes it’s too late and the words seep out across the ‘hood’. That would be ‘neighborhood.’ So last night the house catty-corner to ours which is usually quiet erupted with verbal assaults. I tried to listen but couldn’t get close enough to the fence without being seen. Not that I really want to know. Well maybe. Maybe this is mass hysteria taking over. They hear us in our LOUD discussion with the kid so they jump on the band wagon and want their piece of the pie.

Today, they are going at it again. Presumably the dirty laundry was not completed last night. I wonder where that phrase derived from. Hanging out the dirty laundry for all to see. I mean you hang out clean laundry not dirty laundry. Not that we are allowed to have clothes lines in our neighborhood. It’s upscale - no outside clotheslines.

If the whole hood started their Long Hot Summer episodes it may become a reality television show. We have the 6 households with loud voices, one with a little yappy dog, one with two big yappy dogs, our yappy dog, the drunk who drives on the sidewalk, the drummer who beats to his own drum add in a 90 year old that still drives her car (stay out of her way) the grandfather raising his grandchildren, the landscaper and his illegally parked trucks and his roaming bees, the couple going through a divorce ( not a pretty sight) and those renters around the corner we could have a hit reality show. We could call it ‘In the heat of the long hot summer day.’