Anti-Winter

One of the weirdest parts of life in the Sonoran Desert is that your seasons are turned around, so that the winter half of the year is when you enjoy the weather and the summer half is when you cower inside during the day, waiting for the fierce blowtorch in the sky to disappear and let you breathe again.

The continent-wide culture of modern America underlines this with national retail stores stocking up on what is considered seasonally appropriate clothing in places where summers are nice and winters are cold. This means that come October, when it’s time to pick up a new pair of sandals and shorts, there’s no way to get them, but hey, a heavy sweater just perfect for sitting in front of the fireplace after a hard morning of shoveling snow? Got you covered.

At this time of year, with the summer solstice coming closer and closer, the general vibe in advertising land is that you should want to purchase things for the backyard and books to read while lounging around in the hammock on a lazy afternoon.

Ah, the Idea of Summer.