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 Summer … What a Bummer
By Jim Shahin
Summertime and the livin’ is easy, my patoot. The livin’ is hard. Very hard.
For example, when was the last time you got a tan? I mean, the real way? Not all that indoor salon jazz.
Tell me that’s easy.
Sure,
it used to be. Back before skin cancer and body neurosis. Back then,
you just stretched out under a hot sun, drank beer till you passed out,
and woke up hours later lookin’ gooood. Or lookin’ fire-engine red.
Whatever. First rule of old-school tanning? Sunburn flakes to suntan.
See? Easy.
But these days, you have to use protection, and I
don’t mean more beer. First off, I mean, well, I don’t know what I mean
because it is too complicated to figure out. There’s sunblock,
sunscreen, sun care, sun stay away, sun beat it, sun search and
destroy, sun rip the rays right off that smiling face of yours, etc.
Each has a secret ingredient, like aloe vera or mashed onion essence or
something. Worst of all, they all have numbers that correspond
mysteriously to letters, like some ancient Egyptian code. UV over SPF
times 30 equals … I give up, fully clothed?
As if all of that
weren’t enough to deal with, proper suntanning requires that you
carefully hydrate with something called — and this, I believe, is the
correct technical word — water. What is this, this water? I thought you
swam in it or showered in it. Now they want us to drink it?
I’m telling you, the livin’ is hard.
As
if tanning weren’t tough enough, in the summer you also have to grill
burgers. Time was, you took your ground beef, formed it into a puck,
and charred it over some coals, maybe melting a slice of yellow
American cheese toward the end.
Not anymore.
A quick
spin on the Internet reveals a burger recipe with onions, baby carrots,
and potatoes. Isn’t that shepherd’s pie? But that burger is practically
traditional compared with some others. There is a hamburger, Cub
Scout’s honor (I never made it to Boy Scout), that mixes beef and tuna.
I give it a special name: the yuck burger.
There are
mushroom-stuffed burgers, salsa burgers, burgers with sauerkraut and
Swiss cheese (the Reuben burger), guacamole burgers, a horseradish
burger with Havarti cheese, a Polynesian burger (served with a slice of
pineapple and a lemon-lime-orange sauce), a teriyaki burger, some
concoction with lemons and brown sugar called a pucker burger, and on
and on.
Then there’s the fuel needed to cook them. Charcoal? Ha!
Who does that anymore unless it’s 100-percent-natural hardwood
charcoal? No, these days you have to use wood, and the more exotic the
better. Mesquite (which, deriving from a scrawny tree out in West
Texas, isn’t exotic but sounds it), apple wood, cherry wood, alder
wood, maple, hickory, pecan. I’ve heard about folks using Argentine
hardwoods and some fancy-shmancy Japanese wood called binchotan, “made from hard holm oak,” whatever that is, and called by Gourmet “the Champagne of charcoal.”
I wonder if that’s like the Champagne of beers.
The point is, cooking burgers now is no longer a picnic. It is a blood sport.
But of all the rigors of summer, none is quite as difficult as saying goodbye. Summer is the Goodbye Season.
Friends and families visit each other, and when it’s time to go, nobody knows quite what to say.
Actually, women do.
For example:
“Ooooh, I’ll miss you.”
Big hug.
“You too.”
Deep squeeze.
“It was really, really great seeing you guys again.”
Warm pats on back.
“Come visit.”
Look into each other’s faces.
“We will. We will.”
Mist in eyes.
“Okay, gang. It’s time to go. Say goodbye. We’ll miss yooou.”
Waving now.
“You too.”
Men, on the other hand, are, as with most things dealing with emotions, clueless.
For example:
“Dude.”
Awkward missed handshake/half embrace/manly two-pat backslap.
“Duuude.”
Quick unembrace.
“All right.”
Silence.
“Yeah.”
Silence.
“Barbecue was killin’. Mesquite?”
“Polar-compressed natural yoogie-yoogie. From Venus.”
“Ah, yoogie-yoogie. Shoulda known.”
Silence.
“Okay, guys, let’s go. In the car. Can’t spend all day sayin’ goodbye.”
I can’t wait for winter.
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