The sun’s just out there. Burning with a cosmic fury few of us can imagine, let alone understand.

It’s so damn hot.

The temperature at the core of our sun exceeds 27 million degrees Fahrenheit. What does that even mean? To what “normal” thing can you compare that?

Number of atomic bombs?

Number of hydrogen bombs?

How can you make that level of heat relatable? Estimate the fraction of a zeptosecond it’d take for the sun’s core to atomize my refrigerator?

FYI: A “zeptosecond” is a trillionth of a billionth of a second which is something I totally already knew about before writing this. Didn’t you?

Much like the brain-melting size of our universe, the perplexing workings of subatomic particles, and the border between Eau Claire and Altoona, the sheer hotness of the sun is not something we cannot easily discern.

But I know one thing for sure. Twenty-seven million degrees is almost, but not quite, how hot I get in Wisconsin’s horrendous summertime season. Which is disgusting.

I mean, have you ever noticed how annoying it is to be too hot? It’s pretty bad. I’ve heard people say that other parts of the planet – parts I’ve never visited – get way hotter, but I don’t believe it. How can that be true?

You have no answer.

”

AFTER CONDUCTING 30 SECONDS OF RESEARCH, I'VE LEARNED THAT, ACCORDING TO THE WISCONSIN STATE CLIMATOLOGY OFFICE, THE HIGHEST RECORDED TEMPERATURE IN EAU CLAIRE WAS 111 DEGREES,

a record set in July of 1936. But how do we know that's true? Were any of you alive in 1936? Impossible.

I mean, one summer, my dad made me go fishing in a lake in Wisconsin, and I got so sunburned I had to stay inside for the next few days to recover. I had to tell all my friends my friend that I couldn’t come out and play. And it broke their heart.

One summer, back in the raging 1990s, the cab of my little un-air-conditioned pickup truck got so hot all my Dave Mathews cassette tapes warped and melted while I was driving around Eau Claire, like, to the mall and back.

One summer day, years ago, the humidity was so bad we basically had thick fog all day with super low visibility, and my landscaping boss still made us work, building a set of steps in some dude’s backyard using giant 6-inch by 6-inch timbers and tons of crushed granite and it was 27 million degrees outside and it just … really sucked.

And one summer, back in the 1980s, it got so hot in Eau Claire that I spent almost a week not wearing a shirt when I played outside, and I ALWAYS wore a shirt, even when swimming indoors. That’s how hot (but also very cool) I was.

I’m not sure what it is about this city where I’ve always lived, and thus have nothing to compare it to, but it GETS SO HOT HERE. We’re just cursed, I guess.

After conducting 30 seconds of research, I’ve learned that, according to the Wisconsin State Climatology Office, the highest recorded temperature in Eau Claire was 111 degrees, a record set in July of 1936. But how do we know that’s true? Were any of you alive in 1936? Impossible.

We both know this is yet another lie perpetuated by Big Thermometer to sell more, um, thermometers that, like, don’t go higher than 115 degrees. Because developing that kind of advanced temp-tracking technology would be far too costly, and it’d destroy their profit margins, and they’re all just bunch of capitalist piggies who don’t care if we, the people, want to know the actual temperature, which I’m pretty sure is normally in the high 1500s.

It's all so obvious. Stop buying into the hype! It gets hotter than hell in Wisconsin, and they don’t want us to know it.  They want us to hide indoors with our fans and air conditioners, with our Popsicles and buckets of ice cream, with our Netflix’s and Hulu’s. They want to normalize sweating.

This ends now! And by “this,” I don’t mean Wisconsin’s heat conspiracy. I mean this column. Because I’m just now realizing that it might sound like I’m trying to make fun of people raising the alarm on climate change—as if they’re a bunch of paranoid nuts instead of people who have the world’s scientific community on their side, constantly telling us that it’s actually worse than you probably realize.

And now I’m pretty depressed. And hot.