Summer is traditionally all about spilling melted Zooper Doopers on Mum’s good couch cushions, reconnecting with old friends (who have pools) and buying fresh fruit from the supermarket and never eating it. But it’s also about second degree sunburn, steering wheels that melt the flesh off your hands and 40-degree days that make you want to die. And sometimes we just can’t rely on our basic survival instincts to get through these dark days.
So, here are 20 life hacks that’ll save your life the next time the mercury rises and you can’t tell if you’re crying or sweating.
- Go to the movies. When one session ends, hide behind a seat and stay for the next one. Never leave.
- Read every word on every box in the freezer aisle of the supermarket.
- Go to a cafe, ask the barista for a bowl of water for your dog. Go outside and tip it on your head. Surprise—you have no dog.
- Put a frozen party pie in each bra cup.
- Cross-compare the calories of every bottled beverage in the cool room at the bottle-o.
- Test drive fans at Harvey Norman and insist that you’re very picky.
- Sit on air-conditioned public transport for four hours pretending to be asleep.
- Google ‘ice skating rinks near me’ and shlep to the closest one in a bikini.
- Put a change of clothes in the freezer to wear in approximately one hour. Prepare yourself an ice bath while you wait.
- Volunteer to be an exam invigilator at your closest university. The temperature of exam halls is always f*cked.
- UberEATS a litre tub of gelato to your house. Sit it on your face until it melts. Call and complain that it arrived that way and demand another. Repeat until there is a cool change.
- Go window shopping for ice sculptures.
- Chew ice cubes. Maxibons will also suffice.
- Fill an empty bottle of Windex with chilled water and spray yourself with it until you lose consciousness.
- Go to your closest Coles supermarket in a power suit, tell the employee at the deli you’ve been sent by Food Safety Australia & New Zealand and insist on checking the use-by dates on every item in the meat room.
- Sign up as an Uber driver for the day and get paid to drive around with the aircon on.
- Go to a golf course, hit the ball in the lake as much as possible, insist on jumping in after it each time. Offer to do it for other golfers too.
- Buy a waterbed and fill it with chilled San Pellegrino. Yes this is expensive but it will pay off tenfold. Trust us.
- Get a pair of earrings (preferably studs), jam the front stone/jewell into an ice cube and wear it. Repeat with second earring. In fact, repeat with as much jewellery as possible.
- Drain all the goose down from a sleeping bag and fill it with Zooper Doopers.
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Image credit: Ben Tyers