Is it hot enough for ya?

How many times did you hear that expression just after the Canada Day weekend?

Of course, we couldn’t breathe for a while because of the smoke, and it seems like the extreme heat melted the smoke away. I’m not a rocket surgeon, but I am pretty sure something like that went down.

On the holiday Monday, I wasn’t sure if the smoke and heat were from the atmosphere, or from the food truck I went to for lunch.

The heat was extreme. In fact, it was so hot – this is not a Johnny Carson thing – that our TV, internet and phone were knocked out because the cable in the box down the street melted. And, of course, it happened five minutes before the Blue Jays game.

So I was ready to go Newman-from-Seinfeld on this big, juicy, food truck cheeseburger and this sweaty guy comes up to me and says, “Hot enough for ya?” It was the fifth time someone had asked me that over the weekend.

C’mon everyone, can we not come up with a better conversation starter?

The question is annoying, but the extreme heat last week made me a bit homesick for Texas. In 1998, we had 90 days in a row of what we went through here last week, and you do kind of get used to it. I’ll take it over 30-below any day.

One of the big differences between Texans and Canadians is that Canadians will come and ask if it’s hot enough for ya. Texans won’t ask, but they’ll come up with some kind of entertaining metaphor. I loved the food, the people, the weather, and everything else about Texas, but most of all I loved frolicking within their- limitless boundaries of language, syntax and metaphor – the same freedoms responsible for some of the silly and seemingly inappropriate expressions that George W. Bush used to let out from time to time.

When I lived in Texas, I coached football with this big ol’ fella named Coach Carl. He had an expression for everything, and it seemed that every day he would give his own Coach Carl-style weather forecast.

“It’s so hot they’re stampin’ ‘half an hour ago’ as the best before date on Popsicles.”

“It’s like bein’ in the inside of a fat plummer’s pants.”

“It’s so hot the chickens are layin’ their eggs sunnyside up.”

“It’s hotter than the tin gutter on the Devil’s shed in Hades.”

“It’s so hot Orville Redenbacher’s head is fixin’ to pop.”

“It’s so hot you could spit steam.”

“It’s so hot I done saw a dawg chasin’ a cat and they was both walkin’.”

“It’s worse than Texas hot. It’s Africa hot.”

“It’s hotter than Satan’s underpants at high noon.”

“It’s so hot my braces are blisterin’ my teeth.”

“It’s so hot my eyeballs are fixin’ to shrivel up like raisins.”

“It’s hotter than my dog’s breath.”

“It’s hotter than a buzzard’s butt at high noon in El Paso.”

“It’s so hot that Janet Reno is cooling off down at the Branch Dividian complex fire.”

“It’s so hot the watermelons are evaporating.”

“It’s so hot my nipples have crawled back inside my body and are looking for shade under my spleen.”

“It’s hotter than two polar bears fightin’ in a forest fire.”

“It’s hotter than fresh asphalt on the Hades Interstate.”

“It’s so hot the M&Ms will melt in your hand, not your mouth.”

“It’s so hot you can cook spaghetti in the pond.”

“It’s one of them aluminum foil sweater days.”

“It’s so hot I want to take off my skin and just wear my bones.”

“It’s hot enough to sunburn a horned toad.”

“It’s hotter than Lucifer’s woodstove.”

“It’s so hot I saw two trees fighting over a dog.”

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Coach Carl wouldn’t ask “is it hot enough for ya?” He would challenge himself to come up with something a bit more colourful. Last week, I started thinking of some that I heard him use. I figured I would make a list and share it with you.

Please note that the Coach Carlisms are more entertaining if you read them with a Texan accent.

“It’s hotter than a campfire in hell.” (Note – hell is a two-syllable word in Texas, pronounced hay-ell.)

“It’s so hot the birds are using oven mitts to pull worms out of the ground.”

“It’s so hot I can hear the fat on your arse sizzlin’.”

“The air conditioning guy is busier than a long tailed cat in a room full of rockin’ chairs.”

“It’s so hot that Home Depot is asking for a cover charge to go into their fan section.”

“It’s so hot Mexico is fixin’ to build a wall to keep the U.S. out.”

“It’s so hot Baskin Robbins is selling jalapeno ice cream.”

“It’s so hot my thermometer was reading ‘you’ve got to be freakin’ kidding me.’”

“On days this hot, my momma used to wash and dry the clothes at the same time.”

“It’s so hot I just branded my nephew with the seat belt buckle.”

“It’s so hot you can drink the pavement with two creams and one sugar.”

Well, that’s just a sampling of them. I hope there is still enough time left in the summer to make use of these when you’re at the line up in the post office or the bank or somewhere like that.

By the way, is it humid enough for ya?