Fifty Signs summer is coming

Fitz Fifty

1. You’re steeling yourself for that joyful time when relatives up north will soon be calling to ask you how you like living on Tatooine

2. The Reid Park Zoo staff has been seen handing out parasols and fans to every animal with opposable thumbs

3. You’ve got “The Martian” in your streaming que because you’re looking for tips on how to survive being trapped on a hostile desert world from now until November

   

4. The little rubber saguaro your neighbor stuck on his car antennae has melted and looks like a severely depressed Gumby

5. You actually said aloud, “ My car’s AC is not meeting my needs.”

6. You caught yourself envying desert tortoises their protective shells

7. It’s time to find that origami master to teach you how to fold your car’s accordion-fold window shade properly

8. The University of Arizona cheer squad has been heard singing “Bear down, Arizona, in a few months when it’s cooler…”

9. Packrats are leaving cholla buds in your ears

   

10. You wonder what’s sizzling on the grill and you realize its you

11. You’ve done the measurements and you could live inside the swampbox cooler on your roof

12. No Tucsonan will listen to John Denver’s “Sunshine on my shoulders makes me happy” until November because for half the year sunshine on your shoulder causes melanoma

13. Listen closely and you can hear Gila monsters vowing to lose weight in time for a bikini weather

    

14. Tucsonans are saluting each gorgeous sunset with the words, “Good riddance, hot shot”

15. Tucsonans are slathering sunscreen on their necks, arms and faces like they’re frosting a cake

16. You coated your roof and your loved ones with rubberized reflective paint

17. You’re becoming much more conscientious about not sitting on your car’s seat buckle when you get back in your vehicle midday

18. You’ve been practicing wearing barbecue mitts when you drive because this summer you’re going to be ready when your steering wheel gets hotter than a branding iron

19. You promised yourself you will not drive mid-day in Tucson until it’s October

    

20. You find yourself saying things like “is spontaneous combustion a thing?”

21. With the housing market tight you’re considering an abandoned burrow vacated by a kangaroo rat that looks “cozy, dark and cool”

22. You’re starting a strict all popsicle and EeGee’s diet

23. You’ve started talking to your air conditioner encouraging it to give you “all you’ve got, baby”

24. You used to be fussy about summer trips but this year you’re willing to take a vacation anywhere that is not flooded or ablaze

25. The creosote blossoms and snowbirds are withering

26. You just saw a lizard tiptoe across the hot sand in front of you

    

27. You’re thinking about moving your morning walks to “when it’s cooler” like during the next Ice Age

28. You’re getting a little surly. You just heard “Summer time and the living is easy” and you called Gershwin a Goddam liar

29. Mental health treatment facilities are becoming overcrowded with local television meteorologists who are cracking under the strain of coming up with fresh ways to say “Sunny and clear with more record breaking temperatures in the forecast” after saying “Sunny and clear with more record breaking temperatures in the forecast” for 200-days in a row

30. Your shame and guilt about owning a swimming pool is replaced with shameless bragging about owning a swimming pool

31. Select Tucsonans, settling in for the long summer, are inviting Mt.Lemmon bears to hibernate with them as long as they bring their own tequila

    

32. You have started a “ghoul pool” wager on how many tourists will make the lethal mistake of thinking July is a swell time to go for a midday hike in the desert

33. When people suggest you’re going to Hell for that kind of behavior you remind them you’re in Tucson for the summer and Hell would be a vacation

    

34. Tucsonans are starting to check Phoenix temperatures because here in Purgatory we want to know how its going in Hell

35. Two words: Sidewalk S’mores

36. You have started to refer to the car you park in the sun as The Broiler

37. You’ve scoped out which malls have the best AC

38. Fire walkers of Fiji will be returning any day now for their off-season city sidewalks training

39. You’ve promised yourself you will not “lose it” this summer by getting into a fight over a parking space with shade unless it’s “High Noon”

40. You’re reminding your friends and neighbors planning a San Diego vacation that the good people who stay here for the entire summer are “real Tucsonans”

41. Folks in the Old Pueblo are already greeting the sunrise with “Oh, great, it’s you, again”

42. You caught yourself wishing Tucson had a domed amusement park and a subterranean mall

43. Tucsonans trapped here for the summer are already calling folks planning summer escapes “fair weather friends”

    

44. Two words: Snow cones

45. You’re thinking about joining a religious cult just so you can spend the summer on Mt. Lemmon

46. Two words: Dairy Queen

47. Two words: Splash pad

48. You’re completely unqualified to play hockey but you’ve weighed the pros and cons and being on ice will be worth the contusions and compound fractures

49. Tucson shoppers are sizing up the frozen foods freezers at Food City as a possible summer residence

50. The clearest sign summer’s here? Tucsonans have stopped wearing white knee socks with their sandals