Reporter Matthew Weaver melting in the sun.

A rose by any other name still dies from excessive amounts of sunshine

Everything bad that ever happened to me, happened on a sunny day.

I have no real scientific evidence of this fact, but I also have no doubt.

As weather forecasts begin to point towards sun, sun and more sun, and temperatures begin to skyrocket, one word keeps repeating itself in my brain, over and over: Doomed. We are all doomed.

I'm not a hot, warm, sunshine person. This is something that comes from living years and years without air conditioning — sweet ceiling fans, of thee I sing — and years and years with that most appalling of conditions known as "heat rash." But I shan't elaborate, so as not to put off the more genteel of our readers.

No, I prefer those cooler, overcast days when the skies are gray and the wind is whipping a redemptive coolness across my armhairs. There's a hint of rain in the air, and storm clouds are looming darkly in the distance …

It's not actually raining, you see, and not so cold as to require a jacket. I'm nearly as miserable sopping wet as I am overheated and dry.

Those are days that are full of promise and hope, to my mind.

But I've been anxiously watching my thermometer, reading archived newspaper stories of temps of 103 degrees, and sweating.

I'm a little nervous, to be quite frank. Weavers are much like roses: We smell great, are beautiful to look at and tend to wilt in extreme degrees of heat.

Ordinarily, it wouldn't be a problem. Summer time and all that. I'd just go out and get all my business done in the early morning, then be back home and hidden in the dark, cooler recesses of my apartment to wait out the hottest parts of the day.

Except now I'm gainfully employed, so I'm expected to be doing actual productive pieces of labor during the time where everyone, were we all smart, would be at home sleeping off the heat and coming alive in the cooler temperatures.

More siestas, I say! More!

I can hear the people who've been doing actual hard work now: "So what, kid? So you're gonna get a little hot. I've been getting up at the crack of dawn for 27 years in countries near the equator, and I had to wear a suit of armor while hauling heavy bricks. And you don't hear me complaining, do you? Nooo! Sometimes the bricks even catch fire, it gets so hot, and I just do it with a smile and a flourish. Oh, and sometimes I whistle while I work."

To you I say: Pfft. Whatever. This is completely different. This is ME we're talking about here. And I subscribe to the Oscar the Grouch School of Thought: "Don't let the sunshine spoil your rain … Just stand up and complain."

Now, I've got people trying to rally me, tell me everything will be OK in the midst of stifling summer heat rash … I mean, summer heat.

They have tried to ally my fears with the fact that now I live in an apartment where I do indeed have air conditioning, which should conceivably mean that I will run home, drenched in sweat, to be greeted with arctic gusts of chilly air, so much so I'll be shivering throughout the night.

Yeah, it's kind of like that. Sierra Mist — taste one shockingly refreshing lemon-li…

Whoa, what happened?

Heat's already starting to get to me. Sorry about that.

Those folks had better be right. Happiness is frozen feet tucked comfortably between my covers.

In the meantime, don't be too surprised if you're out sometime in the hottest hour of the day, and you find a puddle that looks like it could have once been an almost startlingly attractive Columbia Basin Herald reporter.

Then you'll find me. I'll be the one hugging the air conditioner.

Matthew Weaver is the business and agriculture reporter for the Columbia Basin Herald. Unless he melts …