Annoying Things Humans Deal With In the Summer Time

Photo by Maciej Serafinowicz

As a kid, summer is the longest period of freedom you’re given each year. Nearly three full months of being able to wake up each day and decide exactly what you’re going to make of it. What could be better?

Carefree summers and childhood, like all things, don’t last. When you become an adult, several annoyances make you wish for the glorious, daily freedom of your school years.

Here are several top annoyances you face as an adult that make you wish you could pull a Marty McFly back to childhood:

High Power Bills

As temperatures rise, so do electric bills. There are plenty of ways you can cut down on your home’s energy consumption, but there are some days it won’t matter how long you keep the blinds closed and that box fan roaring.

It’s going to be hot. And when it’s hot, you turn on the AC.

Unfortunately, electricity isn’t free. Sitting in a puddle of sweat in the middle of June will make anyone believe forking over an extra hundred dollars to the power company is worth it.

No Football

Before you say anything, yes, it’s true — baseball is still going on during the summer. As are golf, the Stanley Cup Playoffs and the NBA Finals. Yes, there are still sports happening between May and August.

But none of those comes close to the popularity of pro football in America, which is the favorite sport of a whopping 33 percent of Americans. The Super Bowl, the end of the season, is played in February. That’s a long wait for the following season, especially when you consider that a third of the country can’t indulge their favorite pastime for six months.

If you love and miss football, you and roughly 100 million other people can impatiently wait for the next kickoff together.

More Cars On the Road

photo by Viktor Kiryanov

When that final bell rings, dismissing countless kids from school for an entire summer, buckle up.

Those kids aren’t going to just sit at home for three months. They’ll want to go places. And unless you live in Mayberry, they’ll have to drive, or be driven, to said places.

That puts more cars on the road, which means greater opportunities for impatient and reckless driving.

You can bet your local police department knows it, too. They’ll be on the lookout for any dangerous activity on the road, and won’t hesitate to pull you over for it.

With that knowledge, be careful and be smart if you get pulled over. Be safe, turn off your engine and turn on your lights, among other things.

Sunburn

Occasionally you’ll walk over to your window when you wake up, look outside at a beautiful, sunny day, and forget that it’s a million degrees out there. You decide to go for a walk.

You walk out the door, keys and phone in hand, wondering you’ve forgotten something. But you wave it off, excited to get some exercise. An hour later, you come back inside, only to have your cherry-colored cheeks, nose and forehead give you a painful reminder of why sunscreen was invented.

Even if you remember to put on sunscreen before you left the house, you have to remember to keep putting the stuff on all day. Chances are, you’re sweat your sunscreen off the second you step out the door.

More Laundry

When the human body heats up, it cools itself down through sweating. When this natural reaction occurs, the clothing closest to your skin absorbs said sweat.

The clothes then become wet. Nobody likes walking around in wet clothes.

In the summer heat, activities such as walking or riding your bike to work become borderline miserable, especially when you walk in the door looking like you forgot to dry off after your morning shower.

Since you’re soaking your clothes faster than the Vietnam rain from Forrest Gump, you’ll have to clean them at that same pace. You’ll find yourself going through multiple pairs of clothes per day, especially if any part of your daily routine means spending more than 15 minutes outside.

Better stock up on detergent.

Exceedingly Hot Cars

If you’ve ever gotten in your car at 2:30 in the afternoon in the middle of June, you know what it feels like for the Thanksgiving turkey to be put into the oven.

It feels hot enough inside that car to bake cookies. Or, it might actually get that hot.

The worst part isn’t the sweltering heat that feels as though it’s suffocating you — it’s when your hand or elbow or butt touches literally any surface inside the vehicle.

Ever tried steering a car with just one finger on the wheel? Don’t. Just blast the AC and wait for the car to cool down. Otherwise, you’ll be pulled over for reckless driving. See point above.

Long Lines Everywhere

Photo by Paul Dufour

Remember when you heard earlier that kids like to go places during summer? Many of those places will probably be some of your favorite places.

Everyone knows what happens when lots of people go to one place. Long lines.

Restaurants, grocery stores and amusement parks are the worst offenders. Go during off-peak times.

Bugs, Bugs and More Bugs

Bugs like warm, wet places. That rules out lakes, creeks, rivers, rainforests and anywhere in the state of Alabama.

Really, you should avoid any humid place during the summer unless you feel comfortable being eaten alive by mosquitos.

Many well-known activities associated with summer fun involve the great outdoors. There lies your great dilemma: enjoy a day on the lake with some Ultimate Frisbee, followed by rubbing ointment on bug bites — or stay inside and binge-watch Netflix, followed by rubbing your belly after eating a whole bag of Doritos?

Life sure does throw some tough ones at you. Here’s to enjoying your summer despite these “adulting” annoyances.