On Wednesday of this past week I looked at the weather and saw to my dismay that temperatures were predicted to reach Venus levels.

Venus is a hot, greenhouse planet at the inner edge of our solar system, second from the sun behind Mercury or as I have named it — Florida.

I am incredibly vocal about my dislike for summer, which over time has gained me odd looks and even some angry looks from people who don’t see the same perks of winter that I do.

I am smart enough to see the ups and downs of both seasons and admittedly the Ford Focus I drive isn’t exactly known for it’s mountain goat-like traction abilities even after only a half inch of snow falls, but aside from that, I can see no more benefits from summer on a personal standpoint than winter.

The skin-melting oppressiveness of the humidity, the hotter than Hades steering wheel, the sweat, all of it combines to be nothing more than a big reason for crankiness.

A couple weeks ago our air conditioner stopped working properly, which too me put the situation somewhere toward the bottom plagues of the Biblical plagues of Egypt. Locusts, Nile turning to blood, flies, no air conditioner — you know, that kind of thing.

We struggled with it for awhile, thinking that maybe it was just a hitch. We discovered this anomaly earlier in the week to which I said, let’s struggle through until the end of the week to see what happens.

I made it to Thursday before I started thinking I was getting heat-stroke just walking into the living room. Sleeping under blankets and sheets was like a choking cocoon, so we went ahead and got it fixed.

Air conditioning working meant I was a little happier, but it still didn’t help when walking out of the house only to get slapped by what felt like a hot pad. It was suffocating.

Now you might think that I’m being over-the-top with this mode of thinking, but it’s not like I can do much to make things better.

Part of my concept for liking winter more is the logic that during winter you can keep putting layers on, while during the summer you can only take so much off before you are illegal.

Go ahead and use that in casual conversation if you like and enjoy the looks people give you as the mental picture flows through their head. If you’re anything like me, then nobody likes to see a chicken-legged, pipe-cleaner-armed man like me taking their clothes off.

Fabio I am not.

Regardless, my logic extends to walks in the woods, which I like. In a little over two weeks time I will be on vacation at one of my favorite places in all the world. Not far from where we go is Itasca State Park where we like to walk through the woods.

But the heat, it just never leaves that place. There is a breeze if we’re lucky, but when you get deep enough you find no breeze, and once you loose that last line of defense the other horror of summer comes: mosquitos.

To this day I have found no credible good reason for mosquitos. Mother Nature has yet to answer my queries. At best, all I can reason is that they feed bats, which I love. Factor that in and the only thing that doesn’t leave mosquitos at the bottom of the list are ticks.

Ticks, even the name sounds horrible, never mind the arachnids themselves. And yet they another major drawback to summer. When you find a tick it’s like nature is trying to kill you. You want to burn the things off, watch them fall and laugh at their demise.

So there I have laid out my top three reasons for disliking summer. Mock me if you wish, oh ye of the perfect summer body.

For my money give me winter. There is no drowning humidity, no mosquitos and none of Satan’s pets — the tick.