Can we just skip August next year?

Some silly thoughts about the month that ends summer and has melted my capacity for deep thinking.

I used to like August, a month of toasty days and balmy nights, when fireflies and crickets were in full swing, and suntans transformed from golden to bronze.

Now I wish we could just skip the whole darn month.

August is no long august — respected and impressive — like it was in childhood. It’s annoying. Unless you’re on a Swiss mountaintop or a glacier, it’s too hot — like pushing through steamy Jell-o, the air is heavy, sticky, and oppressive — and the month is filled with days that call for three showers, but you’re so zapped (at least if you’re me) that you can barely manage to take one.

In August, traffic doesn’t move, it crawls, whether on an interstate or country highway, beaches are sardine-packed, and everything costs more: prices soar for everything from airplane tickets to food in grocery stores, particularly those that cater to tourists, who descend en masse to clog the pedestrian arteries.

Whether you’re in a city or a beach town, sidewalk rush hours — when the walkways fill with hoards on foot, on bikes, on skateboards and scooters —transform former leisurely strolls into high-maintenance pedestrian maneuvers that call out for blinkers whenever you dare to change lanes.

In August, communications are frustrating since half the world is at the beach and not looking at email, not to mention that life becomes more expensive. Bills shoot sky high, whether for air conditioning, a gazillion showers, or daily bags of ice.

You suddenly have to wait in line at your favorite restaurant because the vacationers have arrived and besides everybody is moving in slo-mo as they push through atmospheric pea soup and Vaseline.

But more than making you sweat far too much and chomping at your wallet, the month is seriously dangerous — with insurance companies calling August 7th the deadliest day for driving in the U.S., although the whole month sees high crash rates, not to mention scorching heat waves that cause tens of thousands of deaths.

And if you live in a Mediterranean country, August is a particularly lethal time to get sick — since most the doctors are on vacation. Hospitals are staffed with the lowest on the medical totem pole. Just avoid them.

So I am toying with a new idea: “Ban August” — and we can simply jump from July to September — although that admittedly does pose problems for those who vacation in this heinous eighth month or have birthdays that fall then (as many of my favorite people do). And, problematically, a mere name change — to September — does nothing to address the oppressive weather or the jump in expenses.

A more realistic possibility may be to add August to those other months — namely January, February, and March — when we humans should just stop the normal schedule and start hibernating, a proposal which I will be putting forth to the UN or whoever it is that controls calendars and work schedules worldwide.

I admit that I haven’t worked out all the bugs in my “Ban August” movement, but one thing is for sure: after experiencing this particular August, a way-too-sizzling capper to an infernal summer, next year I hope to spend this dreadful month in the southern hemisphere, where at least August happily falls in the winter.