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Now that summer is upon us, why do I find these hot, grueling days to be the best for the worst chores?

Case in point: I have six winter horse blankets that have needed to be washed since March—I use mild detergent, a scrub brush, and a pressure washer. Why didn’t I do the job in April? Or even during the heavenly month of May, when days remained sublimely cool and comfortable? Why did I choose a Wednesday afternoon with the mercury (are we still using mercury?) touching 90 degrees and the sweat dripping profusely from my forehead onto the once cobalt blue blanket that stubbornly clung to its green manure stains despite how hard I scrubbed? Why?

I don’t know, Pam…You’re the one who spent six years in community college; surely you have some idea? 

And here’s the other weird thing: I chose to handwash those horse blankets AFTER unloading a pickup truck load of heavy limbs that came down overnight in a storm that littered the fields and driveway with debris. I’m not saying it makes sense, but it seems that once I’m hot and sweaty— and I mean really hot and sweaty— the kind of hot and sweaty that rots out the armpits of your favorite T-shirt—that a short, one-sided conversation blips through my  brain:

“Well, I’m so disgusting now that there’s no point in going in to take a shower, as I’ll only get just as disgusting when I go back out later. So I might as well do every disgusting chore while I’m equally disgusting.” This includes crouching in the crawl space to change the water filter, pushing the manure pile back further into the woods, and sweeping out the bed of the truck. And then, when I simply can’t stand myself a moment longer, I hit the shower.

This is why I rarely accept social invitations. Because once I’m inside, gloriously clean, cool, and comfortable, I’m not leaving the house. Because this is summer in the South and we know the moment we venture outside because ‘I left my phone on the front porch,’ we’ll feel our hair sticking to the back of our glistening necks and the clamminess of trickles of moisture rippling down our back that has us fume with exasperation, ‘Now I have to take another shower because I’m sweating! That’s my third one, today!’

Funnily enough, my English mother used to say to me in equal exasperation, “Pamela, HORSES sweat and young ladies GLOW.”

I still hear ya, mom. And I’m still glowing like a #*$& horse!