Japan's summer is now named Curtis

And he's not going anywhere soon

Curtis says hello.

After the hot suffocating drench we’ve experienced this year, I’m not going to call this three-month stretch summer anymore. From now on, it’s Curtis.

Hottest Curtis on record. Doctors warn of stroke risks due to Curtis. Economy reels under Curtis’ temperatures.

Why Curtis? When I was a kid—kindergarten through junior high, if memory serves—there was a boy in class named Curtis. He had a stupid red face and big nostrils. He would also just walk up and wordlessly sucker punch other kids. He threw textbooks at teachers’ heads when their backs were turned. In one altercation, he even tried to deck our principal, Mrs. Goodwin.

Curtis was a freak. He was out of control. And no one could get rid of him.

One year I found Curtis had been placed on my soccer team. Sometimes he would just kick a teammate for no reason at all. And then walk away. We would go crying to the coach, but he would be too scared to do anything about Curtis.

He disappeared by high school—probably safely tranq’d with a zoo rifle from 60 yards and then packed off to a cage somewhere. Even after college, I thought back to Curtis a few times. I knew he would be that kid that we would eventually hear got ‘20 to Life’ for murder. Drug deal gone bad, sort of thing.

In fact, when I was about 30, I did hear about Curtis and it turns out he became an internationally renowned rocket scientist of some sort. Worked at the Jet Propulsion Labs outside Pasedena. Who’da thunk?

Look, if I thought summer 2024 was just a one-off, a ridiculously hot, nasty, unbearable, impetuous, fuck of a summer, I wouldn’t go to the trouble of renaming it. But nope, we all know about climate change and we are stuck with “Curtis” forever more. He’s coming back year after year, perpetually in our classroom and forever placed on our soccer team.

And he’s pissed.

In Japan, Curtis just walks up to you one day in about June, doesn’t say a thing, and socks you in the fucking head. And then does the same the next day. And the next after that.

Just accept it. In Japan, we now have Autumn, Winter, Spring, and Curtis.

The word, even the concept of summer is in the history books, people. Say good bye to slight daily variations in temperature and humidity. Bid a fond farewell to afternoon breezes and cooling evening squalls. A picnic with friends or a walk more than 20 yards down the street from June to October? Hahahaha, you amuse me with your naive dreams!

Everyone in Japan now simply drips…and during Curtis the dripping is in all the wrong places. Down the backs of our thighs. Below our ankles and into our socks and shoes. Between our fingers for god’s sake.

But make no mistake. Curtis is not just about heat and moisture. He brings sadistic indignities wrapped in a deepening conviction that he will never in fact leave.

I must say that his “False Exit” is the coup de grace. One morning, say in about late September, we wake expecting yet another day of Curtis, but temperatures have dropped. Noticeably. A breeze is magically blowing, delicious oxygen is back…Autumn is finally here!

Japan’s news broadcasts lead with the exit of Curtis! Smiles are everywhere on the streets. Relief, joy, l’amour de la vie is in the newly crisp air over our archipelago.

Ah, but here it comes… On the third morning of our blessed reprieve, as we celebrate open windows through the nights and the return of single sheets to our beds that we can actually once again sleep underneath, Curtis sneaks up and punches us in the side of the head with a 5AM burning sunrise.

Remember me?

Thought I’d gone?!

YOU. NEVER. LEARN.

I want to kick Curtis in the nuts. Hard.