Teenage Summer Fun

It’s the middle of summer which means it’s the beginning of the end.  Even though I haven’t been in school for decades (shh), the feeling of dread when August comes around is as intense as it ever was.  If Sheryl Crowe can say “40 is the new 30” (then by sequential patterns, you can add that 50 is the new 20….yay!), and then I can say August is the new June.  There’s an entire month left plus another week because Labour Day is late this year.  Oh, how I hate Labour Day.  The word “labour” is the antithesis of summer when being lazy is on the “to do” list.  So here is my summer bucket list (less like a bucket and more like a plastic sand pale from the dollar store):

sit on porch…check

read Book of Negroes…check

finish that bottle of tequila…2/3 check

ride the Behemoth….not yet

swim in a murky Lake Ontario….not yet

clean closets….hahaha, not yet

And that’s pretty much all, not quite as ambitious as my teenage summers where I would cram in the full lineup of ABC soap operas:  All My Children, One Life To live, General Hospital AND still manage to get a tan (the secret to that was moving the basement tv close to the window and blocking the glare with an umbrella).  Those were the hazy days of summer, and at night we would prowl like cats on the River Road, looking for boys and trouble but settling for a Mr. Freezie and then walking home with a single bare foot because one Jesus sandal snapped and then stepping on a piece of broken glass (a Brador bottle, no doubt:  Quebec, circa 1978) and having to get a tetanus shot the next morning at the walk-in clinic which was beside the pharmacy where the Archie comics were displayed in a carousel.  I still remember how the paper and ink smelled in those Betty and Veronicas.  And do you know what, I checked out an episode of one of my old soaps and some of the characters are still there, Botoxed and sandpapered, to which I say: nice work if you can get it, Erica Kane.