Let’s just say you live near Houston or anywhere else where the temperature is currently 98 F (37 C ) with 93% humidity.

Let’s just say you want to build one of these:

And you want to build it by the end of July because  that is when Aunty Natty is coming to visit and you so much want to LOUNGE!

On the enormous lounger!

With ice cold drinks and the latest trashy novels!

Because that is what sisters (should) do!

Let’s just assume you want to paint it a cheerful color and after some research and many baleful glances at your current, UV-damaged garden furniture you decide on a coat of primer and three coats of outdoor enamel, followed by three coats of Spar Urethane (Count it - 7 coats!). So you cut your many, many pieces of wood. Slowly, with a handsaw, because you can’t cut straight with a circular saw and are too cheap to fork out for a sliding miter saw.

Slowly, with a handsaw in 98% heat.

Then you sand all one hundred and two million pieces of wood in the 98% heat and wipe them all down in the 98% heat.

Obviously, you cannot do this all at once. You know, because of the 98% heat. So this step takes several weeks.

Then you start to paint your boards. You can maybe see where this is going.

Waiting for paint to dry in 93% humidity is like … watching paint dry. Only six hundred times as long. Torturous.

Try and apply the protective coat over this tacky tacky paint and when you sand after the first coat, half the paint will come off with it. I know because I have tried.

I should clarify that The Daddy has specifically requested No Distressed Furniture Within House or Yard.

Now I am the one who is distressed.

So, a friendly warning to anyone living in a humid zone who feels the urge to build an enormous double lounger and lacks an air conditioned workshop:

DON’T!

(Sorry, Aunty Natty. This has now become a winter project. But we do have a hammock!!)

Our fireworks evening was a great success, which can be attributed mainly to our sticking with some lame 4ft high fountains, crackers and smoke bombs, and letting the neighbors provide the rockets. Which were loud and many. Our neighborhood was lit up as well as any public show, minus the nasty and probably unsafe fairground. The kids were excited and probably had their latest night ever.

It was all WIN!

And then, this morning, as oil starts to wash inland in Lousiana and the first oil balls wash up on Texas shores, comes news of this:

Seems like some of those BP losers thought they were still playing that old game from their childhood, complete with chump change oil cleanup bills.

Well, well. How about that then.

Today we went to buy fireworks from one of those roadside stands. Actually, we went to buy fireworks from Wally World, but after 20 minutes of roaming and a shopping cart full of blank CD-ROMs, a 12 pack of beer and a Wictor (OK, mostly full of a Wictor) we discovered that particular mega-mart was not selling fireworks, and we gave up.

So we told the children that we would go to a public display instead. Then we happened to pass the field from where said display would be viewed and were horrified to see that they were setting up a fairground. A small, horrible, overpriced fairground. The type of magic fairground that kids absolutely have to line up to ride. And no, just one ride will not do, and when one of them sees an understuffed, dusty purple dog on display major cases of The Whines ensue and suddenly the night becomes all kinds of stressful.

Of course, we could say “No” but it is much easier to bypass the wailing and determine up front that we will not, after all, be going to the public fireworks display because it will be “too muddy”. We will, instead, we proclaim, go buy fireworks from a roadside fireworks stand. Ooh, exciting.

And also slightly intimidating, but we could not change our minds yet again, so we parked the car and unloaded the kids and made our way to the stall.

Surprisingly, we found it manned by a group of maybe 17 year old boys. Which suddenly explained the hordes of teenage girls channelling Carmen Electra draped across the counter as we arrived. Thankfully, they disappeared, taking their visible panties with them,  and made room for us to goggle the fireworks, of which there were confusingly many. The teenage boys were polite, patient, knowledgeable and happy to impart advice such as “you’re not supposed to hold it in your hand but everybody does”. They gave us lots of free extras. It was a pleasant choosing experience.

And then we tried to pay and you know that old joke “How many … does it take to change a lightbulb?”  Well, to work out what we owed for our five token fireworks, it took three.

One to jab ineffectually at the calculator and give up after he “oh yeah, pushed the times button by mistake hahaha”. He then tried to work out the total on paper.

Two to look over his shoulder, point out that he should start with the ones, and then give us the sum of the ones as the total.

Three to come along before I had managed to pay the hugely diminished sum, and work out the true total in his head.

Oh, party pooper Number Three!

Later the Daddy and I talked about the nice young men and what great customer service personas they had and how the most shocking thing was not that they could not do long addition on paper, but that they could not use a calculator.

And then The Daddy pointed out that rather than stupidity or under-education, they had maybe just been smoking.

And I am holding onto that thought…

…I find it strangely reassuring.