When hot days were a great thing

My power is out.

It’s California in August. And was over 100 today. It’s all my daughter’s fault.

The 18-year-old, whom we’ll call Lucy (because that’s her name) foolishly did laundry between 3 and 6 p.m. Which they say never do because if there’s not enough electricity to go around, the weak, elderly and poor COULD IMMOLATE WITHIN MINUTES AND DIE because all the state’s air conditioning will lack necessary power.

Wait … “weak, elderly and poor” …?

Not yet. One out of three.

That afternoon window is when Californians decide their electricity bill no longer matters because they’ve been transformed to the surface of the sun or, even worse … Texas.

So everyone freaks out at the same time and turns on the AC, knowing they will otherwise die.

It’s funny how totally awesomely super savory awesome (I’m from California) how hot days were 40 years ago when I didn’t pay bills, had skin that still tanned, and was indestructible.

It was also when we did nothing but bench press when we worked out. So hot days meant losing one’s shirt and flexing at each other all day.

I think I almost passed out once from extendoflexing when I got near a girl at the high school pool.

Remember the 1980s high schooler in ”Stranger Things” who almost had an affair with the fairly hot mom, but turned evil, forcing the heroic nerds (heronerds) to lock him in a walk-in freezer or a sauna or in an HOA meeting or something to torture him?

I once felt weird when that kid came on screen, like I kind of recognized him: a bit stocky (an extendoflexer, for sure), with the fuzzy almoststache and hair that couldn’t decide whether it was long or not, hedging its bets around the collar until a cute girl told him he should get something called a “bi-level.”

Of course he did. Especially when she offered to cut it for him at her house, while they watched that hot new band Quiet Riot play its first hit for the first time on MTV.

True story. I actually saw her at a school open house 40 years later. We laughed. Her husband didn’t.

So after causing this regional disaster that’s probably killed thousands, my daughter drove away, pretending people weren’t dying in the streets all over the city because of her selfishness. She was with her boyfriend, who’s an OK kid, as long as he’s not flexing at me.

It’s almost dark now, and I still have enough computer juice to keep the room lit. It’s quiet – there’s no electrical buzz anymore. The warm dusk wind is now flowing a bit through the house, since I panicked when the AC shut down and tore part of the roof off with a crowbar.

Weekday nights in August were the best during high school. You got your friends together in someone’s car and drove around until you found other kids – preferably girls who loved bi-levels - driving around, doing the same.

Then, once you made sure everyone was OK after crashing into each other, you sat somewhere and just existed together. It was silly and there was lots of brave talk and flirting, but we had absolutely nowhere to be and owned the world together. The sun went down, making us barely see each other’s faces until someone got close to a streetlight. It didn’t matter. Laughter and mock outrage and playful pretend insults, and someone’s stereo all swirled and mixed in the warm, dark air, that didn’t even move.

Jobs, responsibilities, children, choices, politics, bills, sacrifice, bosses, not having enough money … our young backs with remarkably moist and healthy skin carried none of it.

Every night would be like that; we had each other for the rest of our lives and nothing would change. We didn’t even hope it wouldn’t end - we simply believed it wouldn’t.

It did. Which doesn’t mean people should ever stop wanting that feeling again. I always will, even knowing it could never be exactly like that again with those same kids. The differences only began splitting us once someone said we had to make adult choices. I promise they were overrated.

But I can still chase the feeling in other forms. It can still happen, I tell myself. If I don’t, I’m doing something wrong.

The power’s back on, but I’m still leaving the light off. Summer’s not totally over and no one knows what might happen next.

My daughters have a dad to feed, so please consider paying $8 a month to read these columns. Find more nonsense in Tony’s book “Lying Drunk,” available from Barnes & Noble at https://bit.ly/46xoaJJ or Amazon at https://a.co/d/cYNCUPp).