8 signs it’s dangerously hot

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One of the best things about summer is that the temperatures rises, clothes start to disappear and everyone enjoys the outdoors instead of being cooped up in their cubicles of death like they are for most of the rest of the year. But in this era of global warming and heat waves sent from the bowels of hell, there is a big difference between normal summer heat and dangerously hot. Thankfully, there are a few ways you can tell if things have reached that point, and so if you pay attention and notice one of these eight signs that it has become not just hot but dangerously hot, you can quick get to the nearest air conditioned building or carjack the ice cream man. Just do what you gotta do to avoid stroking out.

8 You Feel Drunk Even Though You Haven’t Been Drinking

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Sure, bring drunk is fun. You lose some of your inhibitions and everybody seems like your best friend. That’s great if you’re at a party or in a bar. It’s not so great if you’re just wandering the streets disoriented at noon on a weekday, sweating your precious life fluids away, and it’s really, really not so great if all that is going on even though you haven’t been drinking at all. That’s probably why all the hobos seem extra confused in summer. They’re not drunk, they’re just suffering from the early stages of heat stroke. So if you start to feel confused and your head starts to pound while the world turns all dizzy, don’t be afraid to just jump naked into the nearest fountain or steal a little girl’s lemonade. It’s the responsible thing to do.

7 You Can’t Even Get Your Groceries Home

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Everybody’s familiar with the race against time to get that carton of ice cream home before it melts. That’s just a normal rite of summer. But things get kicked up a notch when you can’t even get your regular food home without it going bad. You know you’re in trouble if you pull the bananas you just bought at the store out of the bag only to find that they are a squishy mess. When it’s so hot that even the natural fruit of the Earth is all, “Fuck this, I’m out,” then you know that it’s just too goddamn hot.

6 You Feel Like You Need an Inhaler Every Time You Leave the House

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It doesn’t matter if you’re an out of shape office drone or a marathon runner, there are times when it gets so hot that the air quality basically disintegrates and suddenly you become acutely aware of what it must be like to live on Mercury. The only way to breathe without feeling like you’re on the edge of an asthma attack is to wear an oxygen mask like you’re Darth friggin’ Vader and good luck looking like a boss with one of those things strapped to your face. When it becomes so hot that even the air seems to get too thick to breathe, you should probably think about investing in some AC. Or move to Nunavut. Either way.

5 All the Animals Hide

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You know it’s too hot when even your dog doesn’t want to go for a walk and just hides out underneath the bed all day. Look, humans might be dumb enough to go out in that kind of madness but animals don’t play around. They understand weather better than Al Roker. So if you go to the zoo and it’s so hot that the monkeys just chill in their little grotto and won’t even throw poop or jerk off for your amusement, it might be time to duck into an afternoon matinee at the air conditioned theater. Yes, monkeys refusing to jerk it is a legitimate sign of global warming. It’s in all the most reputable scientific journals.

4 You Drink a Gallon of Water and You Still Pee Neon Yellow Sludge

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You’re fighting a losing battle if you sweat out liquid faster than you can drink it in. If you’ve been hydrating all day long and it still looks like your urine is radioactive and it burns whenever you let it fly then you’re probably in trouble. Yes, I know that you don’t want to miss out on that day at the beach, but you’re gonna be missing out on a lot of days at the beach while you’re stuck in dialysis because your kidneys blew up or if you end up tooling around town in a wheelchair talking like Stephen Hawking because your brain stroked out. Keep drinking – water, I mean, sucking down Coors Light all day isn’t exactly gonna help here – and do whatever you have to do to cool off. I’m not saying it’s a good idea to lock yourself in a giant meat freezer but hey, it’s probably better than having your organs liquefy.

3 The Beach Looks Like a Death March

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The beach seems like one of the best places to go in a heat wave, but that can turn out to be one of the biggest mistakes you can make. First of all, there’s almost no shade at the beach. You’re just stuck out in the open under a cruel hell sun with nowhere to go. And second, when sand gets hot, it becomes like walking on hot coals. So if you head to the beach and see people yelping in agony as they stagger through the sand dripping sweat while others just lay around on their towels like they died halfway through a forced death march through the jungles of Southeast Asia then you might want to get back in your car – with the AC cranked of course – and head for a place where the sun won’t poke at you like an angry soldier with a bayonet at your back.

2 Your Chapstick Melts

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Seriously, this happened to me only a couple of days ago. When it becomes so hot that everything starts breaking down to its base elements it’s time to call it a day. My Chapstick melted! Come on.

1 Pavement Melts

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It’s one thing for Chapstick to melt, but when the streets themselves start turning into giant tar pits it might be time to call your Congressman and ask some questions about global warming. When the structural integrity of things starts to come undone because the sun is literally liquefying them, it might just be a tad too hot. I’m just saying, you don’t want to be driving your car down the street and suddenly find yourself sinking next to the skeleton of a sabre toothed tiger. You don’t need that hassle, and besides, nobody wants to be stuck on a tar pit highway with the words “I should have listened to Al Gore” running through their head. Now that’s how you know it’s not just hot, but dangerously – and incredibly irritatingly – hot.