Everyone Is Home For August

They land in waves through July and by August the city is theirs. They have opinions about the traffic, formed over eleven days. They have opinions about the politics, formed over eleven days. They also pay for everything, tip enormously, and cry at the airport in September, so it is very difficult to stay annoyed at them.

You pay for hours, not electricity. In August you need more hours. The man who owns the machine understands this perfectly and has adjusted accordingly, and there is no board of appeal, and there never was one, and everyone has stopped pretending there might be.

The amperage does not permit ambition. At forty degrees the choice makes itself, and an entire city now eats dinner by phone torch in a pleasantly chilled room, which everyone agrees is fine, and which everyone knows is not fine.