In Baltimore's Heat Wave, It's Mostly Hot with a Chance of More Hot

July 6th, 2010, one of the hottest days in Baltimore's history, lavished us with a high of over 100 degrees.

On that morning, I resolved that I would have a completely normal day. I wouldn't succumb to the Maryland tradition of talking endlessly about the strange weather as though it were the most interesting thing happening in my life. In fact, there were two things that were far more interesting than the heat and they were my bowl of delicious Honey Nut Cheerios and my upcoming Japanese quiz.

The news ladies on Fox 45 Morning News were warning us about the intense weather and balking at the idea of the temperature hitting triple digits. The heat would be a slight annoyance for me. Since it was hardly past 8 a.m. and the temperature had already hit 86 degrees, I knew I was in for at least five minutes of heat-related discomfort.

86 degrees before 8:30 a.m. and climbing. One notch on the stick of things that made that unusually hot Tuesday slightly off.

After eating, I got my laptop to make my usual rounds of checking messages, but it had somehow gone into perpetual sleep mode and remained unresponsive. It scared the crap out of me, but overriding and rebooting it made everything nice and peachy. It might've gotten too hot from sitting on my bed for too long. (Oh, the irony.)

Slightly overheated computer. Notch two.

While on my internet journey of checking messages and websites, I saw that someone posted in a thread I made where I post links to updates on my blog. Instead of a nice comment, though, the person only posted to say that my recent entry was scrolling off the page in her web browser. Bummer.

Those blasted Blogger templates are supposed to work in all browsers. Notch three.

By this time, I knew that despite my desire to have a normal day, I would continue to have these minor annoyances that would throw it slightly off balance. Was it the heat? Or was it just A Series of Annoying Coincidences?

When it was time to leave for class, I walked out to my car and the heat hit me instantly. Yes, no matter what I did or thought today was going to be a weird day.

Last week, I had a nice spot in the parking garage at school. I could go straight up the ramp and pull into one of many empty spaces. When I arrived that morning, however, that section was blocked off.

No big deal. I simply parked in a different section, but that was notch four.

It wasn't until I was leaving the parking garage after class when something happened that made me say, "Okay, I'm not having a bad day, but things are still off. I'm just gonna go straight home and relax."

I don't have the best common sense, so I didn't see that there was another way to exit the parking garage from the section I was in. I started going back the way I came and quickly realized that two cars can't pass each other like that. I waited for others to pass, but as I was turning, I bumped the wall.

Notch five. It unsettled me slightly; I wanted nothing more than to go home and not risk anything else happening. Besides, it was ridiculously hot. I spent the rest of the day reading.

As for the Japanese quiz I took, I got it back today and there was one very small mistake. Yeah, Baltimore heat throws everything off.