Despite the fact that I’ve suffered through a dozen or so sticky and stifling Southern summers, they never fail to shock me when they sneak back around each year. I somehow forget all about them in the brief reprieve November through April offers.

Sure, I never forget how hot they get, but all that really means is I remember my the numbers emblazoned on my computer’s dashboard. A row of five numbers, never less than 90, sometimes a whole three digits long, each adorned with a blazing sun icon.

I forget pretty much everything important.

I was home alone the other night when my dog started getting a little squirmy, clearly ready for a tinkle break. I unlocked and opened the back door, then tentatively pushed the storm door open. A wave of heat assaulted me — sweat oozed from my pores, my hair poofed itself into a style rivaling anything the 80’s ever knew, and a fuzzy and dull feeling overtook my brain.

It was then I saw them, floating above the patio. Three, maybe four. Tiny, bright lights. Just floating there, completely nonthreatening, but what the heck were they? Pinpricks of light don’t singlehandedly position themselves eight feet above my patio swing… Should I be concerned? Should I go in the house? Call somebody? Close the curtains?

Oh. They’re fireflies. Hah. They’re actually quite sinister little devils if you forgot all about them.

Summer also ushers in a plethora of frogs, or toads, or maybe both, I don’t bother to discriminate between the two. But these springy and croaky amphibians terrify me more than any other creature I’m likely to encounter in the confines of my yard. They’re always around, plopping themselves on my doorstep, taking a dip in my dog’s water bowl, floating eerily in my pool. Every time I leave the house after dark (usually barefoot), my whole body tenses up, and I watch the ground with every step I take. What if I stepped on one? The thought’s too much for me to seriously contemplate. They’re just so darn nasty.

Then there’s North Carolina’s unofficial state bird, the mosquito. Forgetting about these is actually quite dangerous, yet I do it anyway. It always goes something like this: I’m innocently sitting on the patio one evening, chatting away to my mother (whom mosquitoes seldom pester), when an itchy and fiery demon infests my skin. Few things can irritate me so instantaneously. My limbs usually resemble those of a seven-year-old boys’ during the season, because I voraciously scratch my mosquito bites. It makes me quite self-conscious whenever I don a pretty skirt and sandals; the little scabs don’t exactly enhance my stark-white calves and make me look even less like the golden-tanned Southern gal I’m apparently supposed to be.

Tanning — what a lost cause. I decided a few years ago that I’m abandoning that summery pastime in favor of a snobbish melanoma-free-me attitude. It annoys my attractively bronzed friends, of whom I harbor a slight and secret jealousy. But lying in a pool of my own sweat for hours on end, waiting for my skin’s last-ditch attempt to shield itself from the sun… Well, it just doesn’t really float my boat, that’s all. I’ll stick with my glow-in-the-dark fair skin.

And though I cherish the thought of my future, somewhere in the hear of Appalachia, or maybe Germany, or quite possibly the United Kingdom — basically, somewhere nice and pleasant and damp — there’s something about stepping into my black-leather pressure cooker and heading to work, watching my dashboard thermometer drop from 117 degrees to a comfortable 96, scratching my bug bites and praying for a thunderstorm.

It at least provided me with a long-winded first blog entry!