I HATE Summer! Seriously!!

Memorial Day weekend is the start of Summer for many people. On my way home yesterday, I can't tell you how many people pulling boats I passed. On FB, I noticed a lot of my friends posting status updates about being at the lake or out by the pool. While most people look forward to this time of year, I absolutely dread it!! I think that if I didn't have to live in the South where the humidity is ridiculous, I'd maybe deal with it better. I'm pretty much the opposite of everyone else... instead of getting depressed in the winter & looking forward to the summer, I get depressed in the summer & look forward to the winter! If I had a pool, I'd maybe enjoy Summer a bit more, but still, unless I was literally in the water the whole Summer, it wouldn't make much of a difference. My mom & I are trying to talk my stepdad into going to buy one of those cheap, above ground pools. We did buy one 2 years in a row but we haven't bought one in 2 or 3 years. So, a lot of people are probably thinking, "How can anyone possibly hate Summer?" & "Why would anyone hate Summer?". Allow me to explain myself with the following list:

1. I live in Tennessee. The South gets EXTREMELY hot during Summer months. It's not even June & we're already hitting the 90s here in Memphis. By this time next month, it will be well into the 100s!
2. HUMIDITY!! The humidity here during Summer is absolutely indescribable. It's miserable. I get drenched just walking from my front door to my Jeep. It will be 95 degrees out but b/c of the humidity, the heat index will be like 110 degrees! And even once the sun goes down, the humidity is still miserable. Where my dad lives in California, it will be 100 degrees during the day but at night, it feels great out b/c it will be in the 70s with no humidity.
3. No school! I like that during the rest of the year, I can go shopping during a week day without having to deal with a bunch of obnoxious children. In my neighborhood, we have a ton of kids & I love it that on days when I feel like crap & want to sleep, I can't b/c of the screaming kids directly outside my window. This obnoxious brat that lives across the street was seriously just screaming at the top of her lungs the other day. It was so bad that my stepdad came downstairs & was about to go outside & tell her to knock it off. The sad part is, I'm not talking about some small child. No! I'm talking about an 11 or 12 year old. This girl screams so much that I actually worry one day something is going to happen & b/c of how much she likes to scream, no one's going to even pay attention. Kind of like "the boy who cried wolf". Her own parents ignore her! The reason she's always screaming is b/c she likes to pick on her younger brother until he eventually snaps & starts beating the crap out of her. OKAY, can you tell I'm not a fan on this girl? When she was younger, she'd see me getting ready to go somewhere & she would walk up directly behind my Jeep as I was backing up. SMART!
4. Steroids + amputations= BAD for hot weather! Steroids make a lot of people who take them hot natured. I can't give the scientific explanation that would explain this but they just do. Also, people w/ amputations tend to be hot natured. I CAN explain this one. Okay, so even though I have less of my body than you do of yours (more than likely), my body temp. is still going to run the same as yours. Well, I have less room for that temperature to spread out in. So, that's how that works out. I sleep w/ a fan in my room pointing right on me 365 nights a year! (366 in a leap year!)
5. I never wear short sleeves out in public without a light jacket or cardigan over them. Because of all the damage Meningococcal did to my body, my arms literally look like I was burned. The scars were even treated as burns not long after I got sick. I was actually put into a burn unit at a local hospital for a while & had to wear pressure garments that burn victims wear. I know I shouldn't be self conscious about them but I can't help it. People stare or ask questions & it just gets annoying. I'm not one of these people who just wants to go out in public & wear my disability as a special badge of honor so that I can get special attention everywhere I go. When it's 105 degrees outside, long sleeves aren't comfortable!
6. Biznitches w/ beautiful legs in short shorts! Do I really need to explain this one for you? Before getting sick, I'd been a dancer since the age of 4. Even though I was only 5'1, my legs were long. And they were very pretty. I had my momma's tiny ankles and all. Anytime I have to go out in the summer, it's just like a constant reminder of what once was & it can be a bit depressing at times. Oh, did anyone catch Carrie Underwood's gorgeous gams on the AI finale? WOW! That's all I can say!
7. Cute toes w/ cute piggy polish. Again, this reason doesn't need much explaining!
8. I no longer go to the beach b/c I don't want to scare everyone off at the sight of me in a bathing suit! I spent my Summers in California from the time I was 2 or 3 up until I was 18. I especially LOVED the beaches in Southern Cali... Newport & Huntington!! I also went to Florida quite a bit so I spent some time on the beaches there as well. And don't even get me started on the beaches in Maui... they made Florida's beaches look disgusting! I LOVED the beach until I got sick. Even if I did look decent in a swimsuit, it sucks to not be able to feel the sand squish between your toes!
9. The 4th of July! Okay, before all of my fellow patriotic Americans get all pissed, let me explain. You know all these Southern rednecks LOVE them some firework stands... and man do we have plenty of them here. There is one that I could seriously walk to from my house. So, all of these badass kids that live around here go & by grocery bags full of them. They start shooting them off the week before the 4th and they continue to shoot them off for a week (sometimes even 2) afterwards. At 10:00 P.M., I really don't want to hear explosions right outside of my window for an hour straight! I also don't want to hear every single dog in my neighborhood howling b/c they're terrified!
10. And the final reason I hate summer:  The clothing stores like to tease me with all of these beautiful Fall clothes!! Do they really need to put them out the first week of July? Of course, I end up buying these clothes as soon as they put them out & then, for 2 1/2 -3 months, I just look at them hanging in my closet, just waiting for me to wear them!!

There you have it. My hatred of Summer has now been explained. So, everyone else, go out, be happy & rub it in. In the meantime, I will be praying that Summer goes by ASAP so that the tables can turn & I can be out enjoying the beautiful Fall weather while everyone else sends their kids back to school & freezes!! =)