95ºF and Vinyl Seat Covers

If you’re old enough, you remember how it was to put your bare legs on the summer-sun-drenched vinyl seat upholstery of your parents’ station wagon – the one which had been parked outside the mall all afternoon. In short, you grab on to anything in the shade and attempt to “hover” until the car gets going, passing the cooling properties of the roll-down window air over the epidermis-frying seats.

Today’s not much different in Madrid. Arguably, my vinyl office chair (or whatever man-made material covers it) has not been sitting in the sun. Be that as it may, the plastic doesn’t feel at all comfortable against my bare legs nor on my boxer-short-covered butt. That’s bad, sure, but to make matters worse – or better – I “protect” myself by putting a folded beach towel over the seat and under my bum. Sure, it keeps me from sticking, but the sweat soaks into the towel and makes me feel like I peed myself… an hour ago. So when I DO get up and come back again, sitting on that dampness reminds me of putting on still-sweaty football pad pants for the second two-a-day practice. Ugh.

Having the oscillating fan pointing at my torso from 2 feet away helps keep my near-naked body’s temperature somewhat in check but doesn’t do much for the straining PC fan which, from the way it sounds, is growing ever nearer to committing suicide and ending its suffering.

Don’t I have air conditioning? Answer: Yes. So why don’t I use it? Answer: I do when I absolutely can’t stand it anymore – or when I’ve just showered and need to put on real clothes to go out. On the hottest days, I’ll turn on the A/C only from about 4pm until 8:30pm. It’s at this later hour when the sun goes behind the adjacent building’s roof and things then begin to cool off considerably.

My only consolation is repeating the mantra, “Summer is reaching its end… Summer is reaching its end…”, only to be slapped back into reality when I remember to change my sweaty diaper…. errr… boxer shorts.