HOT HOT HOT

It’s too hot outside. It’s even hotter inside. It’s hot all over. London was not designed for heat. If a bit of Nan bread had a life of its own and could speak I bet it would feel exactly the way I feel now. Then again, maybe I’m wrong. Nan breads have to go through this process to reach their aim in life, or the dinner table. We humans are born, cry and eat for three to four years then finally go to school. Just like a Nan bread goes from being flour and water on some kitchen table to spending a couple of minutes in an oven, we spend eighteen years or so in school! Are we worse off than a worthless Nan bread? But hang on! Nan breads are not that worthless. Every single Nan bread has a destiny and goal in life. Most Nan breads achieve that goal and die like heroes in the mouths of fat men and women. Sometimes, the men are not even fat. Sometimes the women are very pretty and busty. What would I give to die in the mouth of a pretty and busty woman!

Back to the heat. This misery has not just arrived; it’s been here all weekend. I had two very powerful fans on all through Friday night and still couldn’t sleep. I went and sat in a park on Saturday morning, and still couldn’t escape the heat. I spent four hours in a cold bath on Saturday evening but, eventually, the water got warm. It was like wading in one’s own sweat, disgustingly sticky.

Everyone else seemed to be enjoying the heat. Even those that hated it didn’t seem to hate it as much as I did. How do these people cope? Was I a refrigerator in a previous life? There I was, sweating like a hot iceberg while everyone around me looked as dry as a smoker’s throat after he’s had his first morning cigarette! Something had to be done. Something had to be done.

On Saturday evening, after I had a quick shower (after getting out of that sticky bath), I got dressed up and decided to visit a cold place, any cold place. I left the house at six and went walking about the streets. I was determined to spend a couple of hours somewhere nice and cold. I walked into our local supermarket and went to stand by the refrigerators. They were cool but not very cold!

I stood there looking at all the items in them and wondering why nobody bothered to decrease the temperature. Surely at such a temperature the milk will soon go off, I thought. I don’t own the shop and know that if the milk, meats and cheeses were to go off I wasn’t the one facing the loss or having to pay for them. However, the milk, meats and cheeses were the only objects in this whole world that shared my feelings about this ghastly heat and this thought made me feel sorry for them. One can feel sorry for objects you know; have you never looked at a square dinning table with three chairs and felt sorry for it? You know, like a dog with three legs or a blind cat or something?

Anyway, I was standing there mumbling to myself and saying ‘the milk and meat are going to go off if somebody does not hurry up and do something about the temperature’ when I suddenly heard a voice behind me! I turned around and saw a middle aged female shop assistant standing behind me and eyeing the fridge. She repeated her question:

‘where are they going to go off to?’
‘What?’ said I again.
‘Who were you talking about?’ she asked smiling.
‘The milk and meat’ I replied with a tentative smile.
She took a step back and started to eye me up with a humourless look. I carried on smiling timidly.
She gave me a rude sort of smile and asked ‘are they going to run off together then? Maybe get married and give birth to a calf?’
‘That’s not what I meant’ said I looking down on her.
‘What did you mean then?’ she asked, still with that evil smile on her face.
‘Don’t you have work to do?’ I impatiently asked.
‘I do’ she replied.
‘Well go and do it then’ I ordered.
‘Are you planning to buy some milk?’ she asked
‘No’ I said. ‘I think it’s gone off’
‘No it has not’ she said ‘it’s right here’.
‘What’s right here?’ I asked angrily.
‘The milk’ she replied, ‘there can’t you see it?’ she asked as she pointed to the milk.
‘I see it, I see it’ I replied, ‘but why are you telling me this?’ I edgily asked.
‘I thought you wanted to buy some milk’ She said with a puzzled look.
‘No I don’t want to buy anything’ I intolerantly replied.

She didn’t speak. Instead, she took another step back and started eyeing me up again. An hour ago, I was complaining about the heat and how unbearable it was. An hour ago I thought there was no worse heat in the world than that. Apart from the oven heat of course but we already agreed that a Nan bread lives a great life. Now, that heat was nothing, nothing at all when compared to the volcano that was brewing inside me. This woman was staring at me as if I was some tramp’s smelly lost sock or something! What right has she to look at me in such a way? What have I ever done to her? Why?

‘So you don’t want to buy any milk?’ she carelessly said.
‘No’ I rudely replied.
‘Cool’ she said.

Cool? Cool? Of all the words in the world, could she not think of any other than the word cool?
I almost lost my cool at her but, since I had none left and could feel myself bubbling like an overfilled kettle, I decided that the best insult was to just storm out!
As I proudly stomped away, I could hear her laughingly shout after me ‘ are you going already?’ ‘if you hurry, you might just catch up with the milk and meat’. She let out a sarcastic laugh. I turned my head as I walked away and shouted ‘leave me alone’. She shrugged, smiled and said ‘COOL’. I walked straight into some shelf full of sanitary towels. Cool!