Phoenix hit 100 degrees. How can the glass be half-full when it's boiling over?
Well dang. That was fun while it lasted.
OK, it’s officially 100 degrees. The temperature reached that momentous reading in Phoenix on Sunday, April 21. That’s a little early — May 2 is usually the first 100-degree day, on average.
And now it’s over. The jig is up. The little game we Arizonans play with ourselves, the little mental trickery — the lies we tell ourselves — that we do not live in the inside of a convection oven for a sizable portion of the year, is once again laid bare. We just took the first step on the path to brown grass and astronomical air-conditioning bills. (Have I turned on my air-conditioning yet? Hell yes, I have. I used to try to hold out till May as some kind of bold gesture. What an idiot I was.)
When did the temperature reach 100 degrees?
The big moment happened not long after 3 p.m. The end of the innocence. This may sound like the ranting (or whining) of a glass-half-empty person. No no no. This is the clear-eyed truth from a glass-all-the-way-full person, and that glass is about to boil over.
OK, look, it didn’t really feel all that bad. Warm, sure, but stepping onto a sidewalk barefoot didn’t result in a trip to urgent care. In fact, it was kind of nice. No one would have even known if it wasn’t for the pesky National Weather Service and their thermometer at Phoenix Sky Harbor, or however they measure the temperature. That’s not what this is about.
This is, in fact, about two things. One is that the first 100-degree day — while itself is not enough to send you running raving into the desert with a divining rod looking for cold water — is a harbinger of things to come. Let’s face it, soon a high of 100 degrees is going to be as good as it gets, an anomaly, even, a break-out-the-sweater event if it happens in July or August.
We know this. We agree to this when we decide to live here. Well, at least we find out pretty quickly. (Suckers! That’s what we are!) It’s the deal we make.
What really hurts is that this is, symbolically at least, the end of winter or spring or whatever you call the weather in the Valley from November till, well, now or so — the reason, as so many people say, that we live here. Seriously, we need to come up with a name for that season, because it’s pretty unique. Sprinter? Wing? Eh. Working on it.
What is the forecast this week?
Seriously, though, is there a better season than the two or three weeks of spring in the Valley? The temperature is perfect and lures you outside, so you go. And it’s so invigorating, and you smell the citrus blooming, and it smells so good, and it’s so relaxing and … well, then you sneeze for 15 or 20 minutes, and your eyes swell up, and you can't breathe because honestly, everything about living here involves some kind of deal with the devil. But as those sorts of deals go, it’s not a bad one.
Now it’s over. Not right this second. It’s actually supposed to cool down over the next few days, which is just another one of those cruel tricks that the universe plays on everyone who lives here. Thought January and February were pretty sweet, eh? Please enjoy August when you accidentally leave a coffee with milk in it in the car for a couple of days.
The dread curdles inside you. And there it will remain, at least until you’re carving pumpkins for Halloween. Everyone complains about the weather, as Charles Dudley Warner said, but nobody does anything about it.
Except grin and bear it. And crank up the air-conditioner.
It's officially air-conditioning season: These 4 words are off limits
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This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Phoenix hit 100 degrees. Time to stop lying to ourselves