The summer heat is upon us, and I’ve been thinking about different ways to rejuvenate myself at work. We’ve recently had some power outages at my university, so the air conditioning has been kept at minimal levels. The hotter it gets, the stranger my ideas become: a bag of ice cubes to snack on throughout the day? Kiss librarianship goodbye and go back to working in the campus cafeteria, solely to hide in the walk-in freezer? Perhaps fill a kiddie pool hidden under my desk to keep my feet nice and cool? Now that could be a winner on the rejuvenation front, especially if it were filled with water from the legendary Holy Grail or Ponce de Leon’s Fountain of Youth. If immortality is the quest, I could go looking for the Philosopher’s Stone, an elixir of life said to turn base metals into gold. But will it turn hot humid air into refreshing cold ice? Living forever seems much more desirable on a breezy autumn evening than a hot summer afternoon. As journalist Herb Caen said, “The only thing wrong with immortality is that it tends to go on forever.”
(Ice cube photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)
Leanne Olson
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