Image via Complex Original
Let's be honest: While New York City is arguably the greatest city in the world, summertime in the Big Apple sucks. Sure, it looks idyllic in photos of kids playing in open fire hydrants and Beyoncé riding the Cyclone, but in reality, when you're trudging to work in 95-degree weather before being let out late on a summer Friday while all your friends are already on the Jitney, it's no fun at all. The one thing that the season does lend itself well to, though, is whining. So read on to see what we'll all be complaining until Labor Day.
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The Smells
We're lumping every questionable and rancid odor together here: the hot garbage smell, hot Chinatown, B.O. in your face on the bus, piss on the subway platform. Every whiff you catch or stank you're unable to escape is made infinitely worse by the fact that the air feels like a pile of hot comforters.
Two-Hour Waits for Brunch
There's no way you can justify more than a 30-minute wait for eggs, so it's impossible to hide your expression of pure horror when a smug hostess delivers the two-hour bomb and expects you still to put your name down.
The Ice Cream Truck Song
That little jingle that ushers in summer can sound so welcoming in mid-May, but by the time we're in August two or three of those trucks competing from opposite sides of Union Square become the equivalent of police sirens.
Catcallers and Crazies
Everyone who has something to say to you on the street will take it up a notch in the summertime. The scorching heat somehow makes sidewalk dwellers and loiterers even more bold and agitated. Plus think how happy those construction workers are to finally have an influx of bare legs making their way past their cement roller every morning.
How Over Hot Dogs You Are
Between all the barbeques and Nathan's Famous Hot Dog Eating Contest, hot dogs are a quintessential summer food, but chances are that by early August it's hard for you not to gag when your friends suggest throwing some weenies on the grill.
No Good Shows on TV
This summer some of us are being saved by the World Cup, but it still sucks that any time between soccer will be spent blankly staring through Bravo reality shows and trying to muster up laughs for Modern Family reruns. We miss you, New Girl, Brooklyn Nine-Nine, Scandal, and Parks & Rec!
The Humidity Ruining Your Hair
The bad thing about New York City heat is that it isn't that nice dry kind; it's that mucky kind that makes your face shiny and gives your hair the same 'do you had in 7th grade. Even if you're one of the lucky ones who doesn't need to use an embarrassing amount of pomade before leaving the house Saturday night, chances are you might spend it with a girl who is complaining about wasting $50 on a blow dry just to look like she stuck her finger in a light socket.
Sitting in Someone Else's Swamp Ass
Can't believe your luck when you snag a seat on the L train? Don't, because chances are you've just sat in little mist or pool of another passengers butt sweat. To make things worse, when you get off at 14th Street and someone else takes your seat they'll think it was all you.
The Rats
I'm no ecologist, so I don't really know if there are actually more rats scampering around NYC during the summer, but I sure as hell see them more. Weaving in and out of subway tracks, terrifying commuters on the actual platform, lurking in the shadows of bar and restaurant gardens, and bursting out of a pile of garbage bags on Bowery, rats seem like they're taking over the city.
The Crowds on the Beach
If it's especially nice out you may get the bright idea to use a personal day to you call up your pal that's in grad school for a trip to the beach. Upon arrival to Far Rockaway or Brighton, however, you realize that half of the city had the same idea. There's barely space for your towel, every time you start to doze off someone is asking if you want a bottle of water, and you know everyone is peeing right along the shore.
The Hot Girls Are Gone
New York City is great for beautiful people watching during Fashion Week, a lovely spring day in the West Village, or balmy September night in Soho. But in the dead of July the crème de la crème of local ladies have abandoned the city, preferring to jet-set to St. Tropez with their filthy rich boyfriends or head to the Hamptons.
Everyone Is in the Hamptons—Except You
Your boss when a 5 p.m. problem comes up, your buddy with the old money girlfriend, every fashion blogger you follow on Instagram—they're all relaxing by the pool in a Southampton mansion or doing sunrise yoga on a Montauk deck. Except you, because you decided this would be the summer you try to pay off student loans.
Sudden Allergies
Somehow the long winter and anticipation for summer makes you forget that awful three week (or three month) period spent trying to convince everyone around you that you're not actually sick. The whole snotty affair somehow doesn't seem fair given that you can barely find grass in certain parts of the city, yet your sneezes would indicate that you're basically walking through a field of glorious sunflowers.
Office Air Conditioning
It's 90-degrees outside, so something feels inherently wrong about having to remember to bring a sweater to work. It's also a given that you will catch a cold at some point considering that your subway sweat starts to freeze along your spine just as you open your office email.
Your Iced Coffee Sweating All Over You
As if your own perspiration isn't bad enough, that morning beverage you have to cough up an extra $2 for has the gall to sweat all over you. Don't even bother grabbing some napkins; it's only going to make things look ickier.
Insanely Hot Subway Platforms
There are few low points as bad as waiting for your delayed train on a steaming subway platform sweating through your freshly pressed Brooks Brothers shirt on the way to your 9 a.m. presentation.
Tourists
Yes, they're here all year round, but it's a fact that there are more of them during the summer and given that you're spending more time outside, you'll probably get annoyed by these so-happy-to-be-in-the-Big-Apple folks more easily than you should. Not to mention that you'll probably be besieged by uninitiated visitors yourself sometime before Labor Day, and be forced to make the Times Square and weekend SoHo shopping trips yourself.
Being Forced Onto Everyone's Rooftop
We get it, you have a really sweet deck/great view of the city that's only accessible via flimsy ladder leading through the ceiling of your building's top floor, but we don't care to go up there every time we're over and act impressed by the skyline. Also, just because you've been blessed with a rooftop, it doesn't mean every single summer party you throw must be held up there. Except July 4—we need to catch those fireworks!
Subway construction
It's such a nice day out! How about we finally make the trek to the Botanical Garden or Bronx Zoo? Not so fast. Your chances of being able to get anywhere outside walking distance of your neighborhood automatically increase during the summer, and even more so on the weekends. Let's just wrap it up, people. No one wants to take the shuttle bus.
Summer Fridays
Whoever was the first to institute the glorious tradition of Summer Fridays should, in theory, be heralded as the season's official mascot. However, there's nothing more disappointing than having an interview or meeting scheduled for 4 p.m. in the office when you should be out enjoying the sunshine and half-priced margaritas. There's nothing more irrational or infuriating than getting out "late" on Summer Friday.