BEWARE: The sun and 90s alt-rock do NOT mix well.

It is going to be a veritable SCORCHER these next few days, folks. With a heat index boosting temperatures well over 100 degrees Fahrvergnügenheit, spending even a few minutes outside will make you sweat more than a pre-pubescent Bar-Mitzvah boy about to chant his Torah portion. The Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments has declared today a CODE ORANGE, which means the air quality is unhealthy for "sensitive groups" (does that include PeTA?).  With all this in mind (and, after recently witnessing my beautiful, sweet, lovely Wife tan herself into a fem-lobster), I felt inclined to share a story that emphasizes the importance of staying hydrated on a day like today.  Before I begin, please drink a glass of water.  No, seriously...I'll wait...

For those of you old enough to rent a car and get kicked off your parents health insurance, you undoubtedly remember the birth of the HFStival, WHFS's annual multi-group concert event which took place predominantly at the glorious RFK Stadium throughout its first 10 years.  It was THE rocktacular event of the year for the Nirvana-infused, grunge-embracing, rebellious high-schoolers of the 1990s, myself included.  I...LOVED...HFSTIVAL.  I looked forward to it more than my birthday, spring break, and Thanksgiving combined.  I looked forward to it more than Catherine Zeta-Jones looks forward to Michael Douglas' monthly Viagra delivery.

The year of this particular HFStival was 1998, if memory serves, and our group arrived at RFK nice and early in eager anticipation of a 10 to 12-hour PARENTLESS extravaganza of loud, moshy music.  We found our place on the lawn, laid claim to said spot by using the universal signal for concert land acquisition: throwing down a hippie blanket, and readied ourselves for the show by talking about which bands we were most excited to see and trying to identify animal shapes in the oddly-colored smoke cloud amassing over the general admission audience.  The sun was out for blood that day, beating down relentlessly in a cloudless sky.  But we weren't concerned.  No, we didn't need to hydrate.  Nothing could stop us from enjoying this day.  After all, it was HFStival Day!

Ok, water break.  Let's go.  C'mon, chief.  Chip chop.

It was at some point during the first band's set that I started feeling an odd sensation throughout my body and decided I'd been sitting for too long and should probably get up and find something to drink.  My skin was hot, mouth was parched, and my head felt a little heavier than normal.  'Must just be tired,' I thought to myself.  I took no more than 20 steps toward the bleachers when all of the sudden everything turned to black and white.  "Hmm....that's odd," I thought, my head becoming unusually heavy.  Then, as if in some 60s music video, everything immediately began to GLOW in technicolor as I swooned and hit the deck.  The feeling was unlike anything I had experienced before.  Either someone slipped some sort of time-release hallucinogenic into my morning Raisin Bran and it only just then kicked in (picture a kid in a really cheesy commercial saying, "Thanks, Mom!"), or I was experiencing heat stroke.  And seeing as how Mom always told us "No acid before lunch," I figured it was the latter.

What followed was a very scary and relatively amusing series of events--scary because I feared for my life, and amusing because I managed to view the situation from both a first AND second person perspective (explained later).  After realizing that I was still alive and walking was NOT an option (Futility Equivalent = repelling down El Capitan with a rope made purely of Polly-O String Cheese), I scrounged up enough energy to pull...nay...SLURM my exhausted body to the closest discernible point of safety.  Ironically, this came to be the side of a water vendor's cart near the edge of the lawn...the irony being that I was too fatigued from dehydration to stand up and kindly ask for an ice-cold bottle of this sweet sweet lifeblood!  To boot, I left my wallet in my backpack on the blanket with my friends, who were way too enthralled with the rotund Greenday enthusiast dancing in front of them sporting a hideous and practically life-sized whale tail to notice their dying concert companion desperately signaling to them by way of forehead scrunching.

As I lay there deflated, watching people walk by and casting half-pitiful, half-disbelieving glances my way, I realized that I had been sitting next to a small pile of discarded ice.  ICE???  Saints be praised!!  I picked up as much ice as I could hold and, in an excited yet sloth-like manner, shmeared the cubes all over my face.  OH, THE ECSTASY!  OH, COLD WET WATERY GOODNESS!!

**Water break!**  Go ahead.  It won't bite.  Unless it's DC tap water.  In which case you should use a fork and knife.

After thoroughly icing my noggin', while still in an incredibly fatigued state, a little voice from deep inside my head spoke up.  It seemed as if the voice was a person standing over me, shaking his head incredulously.  "DUDE!" it said, "Do you see what you look like?!  You're lying on the ground, you're half-covered in dirt, dischevelled beyond belief, babying your pathetic face with a handful of grassy ice.  You look like Gary Busey for F**K'S SAKE!!  C'mon...you have to laugh at this situation..."

And there, on the wet, dirty ground of RFK stadium with the distant sound of Everclear playing in the background, I had a lil' chuckle.  I mean, the situation WAS laughable.  I sat there for a while longer nursing myself back to a semi-normal state, got up, and IMMEDIATELY found a water fountain where I stood, hunched over, slurping like a starved pig at a feed trough until I resembled an 8-month pregnant woman.  Well, my stomach, that is.  I managed to retain the bosom of a 17-yr-old male, thankfully.

Ladies and Gents, the point of this long and drawn out story is this: DRINK MORE WATER!  Save yourself the trouble and don't test your body's dehydration limits, especially on days like today and tomorrow.  If you're thirsty, DRINK.  If you're not thirsty, DRINK.  Heat stroke is not fun and is not worth the experience just to be able to blog about it later.  Unless, of course, you're into the whole Busey look.  But, if that's the case, you have a LOT more to worry about than too much sun...

(Gary Busey, you rock.  Point Break 4 Life.)

(Yes, I know, the mug shot is actually of Nick Nolte, not Gary Busey.  But, hey, cut a brotha some slack...Busey didn't have a mugshot that worked as well.  And, c'mon, let's face it...they're practically the same person, right?  Point Break 4 Life.)