I’m thinking about moving into my fridge. It’s cooler in there, and I would also be closer to the food. My kids would come in and hold the door open, looking for something to eat, and I’d yell, “In or out! I’m not made of money!”
We need ideas to keep cool, because there is, at most, room for one person in there, plus drinks. Sure, there’s always air conditioning sometimes, but there isn’t air conditioning everywhere. And our grandparents didn’t have air conditioning. Of course, they had to walk to school in the snow, so that probably helped. Also, we know our grandparents, and they’re always cold. So they probably didn’t even notice the heat.
Here are some tips for you:
1. Obviously one way to stay cool is to go swimming. But you can’t go swimming all the time. When are you going to play with your electronic devices? See, this wasn’t a problem our grandparents had. They had it so easy.
2. Complain about the heat. Not only does it help, but the people around you will appreciate it, because they didn’t already know it was hot.
3. If you’re hot, close your eyes and picture cold places. Then go to those places.
4. If you walk into a room that has a fan and you’re hot and sweaty, park yourself directly in front of the fan and stay there, giving everyone else in the room an idea of what life would be like in your armpit. If the fan oscillates, crouch down like a crab and do semicircles in front of it.
5. Keep your blinds closed when the sun is out. No one wants to see you walking around in your undershirt.
6. When someone opens the door, yell, “You’re letting the cold air out!” Like cooling off the world is a bad thing. If the world is cool, so is your house. It’s simple math.
7. Experts recommend that you plan your exercise for cooler times of the day, such as early morning or late evening.
8. Ha. Exercise.
9. Lie down on the floor in your basement. Experts say that since heat rises, the lower you go, the cooler you should be. The subway, for example is always nice and cool. This is also why there are ceiling fans, but there are no floor fans.
10. Put your clothes in the fridge the night before. This will, if nothing else, discourage midnight snacking.
11. Keep drinking! But don’t drive.
12. I mean it. Cars get really hot; because they’re surrounded by windows, they get a lot of natural light (which is what people are looking for in a car), and they have no shades. (Hearses are the only exception here. What do they need shade for?) If you need to keep cool in a car, roll down the window and sandwich your yarmulke between your head and the seat rest, and put one arm out the window. This will be your cool arm. Dogs like hanging their entire head out the window, but they lose a lot of yarmulkes.
13. Stay away from kids. Kids like to lean on you and whisper in your ear and see what you’re doing on your small electronic device, and they’ll make you hot.
14. Stay away from people in general. People are hot. Like 98 degrees. If you’re cool and the other person is hot, there’s going to be some homeostasis until you’re both hot. It’s like putting ice cubes in a drink. You’ll both end up at some temperature in the middle that is for some reason still hot. Also, the more people in a given area, the hotter it gets. That’s why it’s so bad outside. Why is everyone outside?
15. If it’s too hot to fall asleep, put one leg over the blanket and one leg under it, put one arm way over your head, hang one foot off the side of your bed, and keep turning your pillow every five minutes, like an omelet.
16. If the cool side of the pillow is the one opposite whatever side your head is on, then maybe you’re the problem.
17. You should also have multiple pillows, and keep sticking them in the freezer.
18. Experts also recommend that you eat a lot of spicy foods. After all, they say, have you ever noticed that people from hot climates—Mexicans, Sephardim etc.—eat spicy foods? It’s because it cools you off. And also because that’s what grows there.
19. If we’re going by what ethnic people do to cool off, they also like having barbecues in the park.
20. Try not to stand over a hot stove. Have someone else do it.
21. If you’re hot at the Shabbos table, feel free to grab a bentcher and fan it at your face. It’s totally okay to do things with a sefer that doctors advise against doing with a baby. As long as you’re not doing it with your china.
22. In fact, don’t fan yourself at all. Experts say that the act of fanning yourself heats you up more than the fan itself cools you off. Instead, have other people fan you while you lounge around and eat grapes.
Sorry about all the cynicism. I’m really hot.
By Mordechai Schmutter
Mordechai Schmutter is a freelance writer and a humor columnist for Hamodia, The Jewish Press and Aish.com, among others. He also has five books out and does stand-up comedy. You can contact him at [email protected].
