Sally Breslin: My Life: SUMMER HEAT ALWAYS BLEW ME AWAY

This current heat wave of 90-plus temperatures and rain-forest-worthy humidity supposedly is the longest we’ve experienced in about 16 years.

Believe me, I remember the last one as clearly as if it were yesterday. That’s because my late husband was the world’s hottest man.

By that, I don’t mean he was ready to pose for Playgirl magazine or become a Chippendale’s dancer – I mean the man’s average body temperature must have been about 110 degrees.

Summers always were an endless source of torture for him (and for me, because I had to live with him). From the moment he got up in the morning until the time he went to bed at night, all I heard was, “I’m SO hot! I’m SO uncomfortable!” at least seven million times. Add to that the fact he broke a world’s record for uttering the word “whew!” the most times in a 24-hour period, and you can understand why I was ready to ship him off to Siberia.

My husband’s obsession with fans actually was what drove me the craziest during heat waves. Although we had a good-sized air-conditioner that nicely cooled our house, it may as well have been a space heater, in his opinion.

So he used fans. There was the ceiling fan in the living room, which he kept on “high” all day and night. There also was a floor fan in the living room, aimed directly at his recliner. On the kitchen table was another fan, which he propped up in front of the air conditioner so it could blow the cooler air into the living room…again, right toward his recliner.

Oh, and he had a hand-held, battery-operated fan he kept near his chair, so he could use it on his face.

Then he bought two fans for the bedroom. One was a floor fan, aimed directly at the bed. The other was a table fan he put on the dresser…and also aimed at the bed.

Personally, I had trouble sleeping with hurricane-force winds blowing the top of my pajamas up over my face all night. And the constant breeze dried out my mouth and nose so severely, I usually woke up with my tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth, and had to soak it before I was able to talk.

Because my husband was such a fanatic (or should I say “fan”-atic) about trying to keep cool, he cranked up every fan to the highest speed. With all of the wind inside our place, it’s a wonder the house wasn’t lifted up and transported to the Land of Oz.

And forget about having a decent hairstyle. I’d spend 30 minutes in the bathroom mirror, getting my hair to look “just right,” but by the time I walked through the house, past all of the fans, I ended up looking as if I’d just spent the afternoon riding on the back of a motorcycle.

To make matters worse, the living room had two huge skylights that acted like giant magnifying glasses. I kept expecting to see the carpet self-combust on one of the really hot days. I also was afraid my husband might self-combust, so I lived in constant fear that one morning I’d wake up to find a big pile of ashes sitting in his recliner.

On second thought, with all of those fans aimed at his chair, heaven only knows where I would have found his ashes.

We tried putting shades over the skylights, but they made the room as dark as a cave. So my husband, when the sun was directly overhead and beating down on him, often wore a hat, sunglasses and only his underwear while sitting in his recliner.

I constantly prayed we wouldn’t have company.

When we built our new house, my husband insisted on installing central air-conditioning and a ceiling fan in every room. The ceiling fan in the bedroom quickly became a constant source of debate between us. I didn’t like sleeping with the fan blowing directly down my head, because the draft caused me to wake up with a stiff neck. But my husband “whewed” so much, I couldn’t sleep, so I usually gave in and let him run the fan on “turbo speed” all night. Then I’d spend the next day staring down at my feet because I couldn’t straighten my neck.

Also, the fan made a noise that sounded like “chug-a-lug” when it ran. After being subjected to an endless chorus of a gazillion “chug-a-lugs” all night, I was ready to toss a rock at the ceiling.

When my husband passed away, I vowed I’d never use the bedroom fan again – and I didn’t, not for six years. But the other night, I was so hot and sweaty in bed, I, against my better judgment, gave in and turned it on. The switch is right next to the bed, so I didn’t even have to get up to do it.

A shower of dust bunnies immediately went flying through the air and landed all over the bed…and in my face.

I swear I could hear my husband chuckling from somewhere up above.

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