It’s too hot to focus on anything else

Boy, it sure is hot lately.

How hot is it?

It’s so hot I bought a loaf of bread and by the time I got home it was toast. It’s so hot my grandfather’s chicken laid an omelet. It’s so hot his cows are producing evaporated milk. It’s so hot the catfish are fried by the time you reel them out of the lake.

It’s so hot the Statue of Liberty disrobed. It’s so hot I went to Congress just to be around some shady characters. It’s so hot I saw two fire hydrants fighting over a dog.  It’s so hot I saw a squirrel collecting nuts with oven mitts on.

It’s so hot my cheeks get a steam treatment every time I sit on the toilet. It’s so hot Jehovah’s Witnesses started telemarketing. It’s so hot Jesus turned the wine back into water. It’s so hot the devil is worried about staying hydrated.

It’s so hot Bill Cosby is sleeping with his wife just to get the cold shoulder. It’s so hot I intentionally leave the toilet seat up to get icy stares from my wife. It’s so hot the ice cream man had to change the sign on his truck to “Cream.”

It’s so hot I saw a bee take off its yellowjacket. It’s so hot the corn in Nebraska started popping in the field. It’s so hot Coldplay won’t work on my stereo. It’s so hot asphalt is available in both a solid and a liquid. It’s so hot the sand on the beach has turned to glass.

It’s so hot that instead of writing a proper column this week, I stole a 50-year-old concept from Johnny Carson, then went to the Internet for bad jokes. Because it’s too hot to focus on anything else.

According to The Weather Channel, it’s been 100 degrees or hotter every day since July 2, and every day but two since June 20. On both of those days the high reached 99. And, the string of triple-digit temperatures isn’t forecast to end until the very last day of the month.

This will clearly be the hottest summer on record. And not just for us. The hottest days on record globally have been this month. That dates back at least to the 1970s, when we first developed the technology to calculate global temperatures. Some scientists argue that it goes back much further than that, for thousands of years.

There is legitimate debate as to how we should best address this problem in a world that has so many diverse energy needs and means of production. But is anybody still arguing that there isn’t a problem?

Walter Rubel can be reached at waltrubel@gmail.com.