If You Can't Stand the Heat, Stay Home.

We have finally had real, honest-to-God summer weather here for the past few days. It has been a cool, wet summer up until now, but since Sunday we've had a run of the hot, humid weather we usually expect. I can't say I mind it; I spend so much of the year complaining bitterly about the cold that I welcome the heat, and I'll put up with a lot of it before it starts to bother me.

There is one distinct downside to the hot weather, however, and that is how other people choose to dress themselves and then go out in public. I understand that when it is 30°C outside, the priortity is function over style, and far be it from me to criticize other people's fashion choices, what with me inhabiting a glass house in the vicinity of many, many stones, but really, there should be a few guidelines. Think of the children.

• There is no need whatsoever for me to see the crack of your bum. None. I don't care if the sun is blistering the pavement, your pants should fit well enough that NO PART of your bottom is out in public, even accidentally.
• I don't know you well enough to see any part of your underwear whatsoever. Its bad enough that I am forced into a premature and false intimacy by having to deal with a waistband or a bra strap, but when I see the entire bra or 6 inches of boxer shorts or clothes so sheer that I can see the pattern on your underpants, we've crossed a line. And don't get me started on whale tales.... It's one thing to be able to see where your legs go into your underwear, but it's another when I can see where they come out, too.
• And while we are on the subject of underwear, it's not optional. You need to wear it. Yes, all the time.
• Men should wear shirts. Period. I know it's culturally acceptable for men to not wear shirts in public, but really, I don't want to see man-nipples walking down the street. And the only people who should have to put up with hairy, sweaty armpits are the people you are related to, or the ones who chose you. The rest of us can do without it.

I remember being as hot as I have ever been in my entire life, 9 months and two-weeks overdue pregnant with Thing 1. It was about a gazillion degrees out, we had no air conditioning, and my bursting-at-the-seams body had given up any ablility to regulate its temperature about 8 months previously, and I still managed to present myself in public with a bit of decorum. I was as cranky as all get out, but I still managed not to show my butt crack to anyone. If I could do that, so should everyone else.