“I’m melting.”

Who all remembers those words uttered by the Wicked Witch of the West after Dorothy throws a bucket of water on her in the 1939 Metro-Goldwyn Mayer film, “The Wizard of Oz”?

Well for the past few weeks, I feel like I am experiencing a similar phenomenon as the green nuisance. With these scorching temperatures, I feel like “I’m melting.”

I mean it’s so hot, the water in my mother’s swimming pool feels like a tepid bath and the poor flowers in my planters — if I don’t water them daily or sometimes twice a day, those babies look like they are melting, too.

This heat wave is also affecting the electric bill. I don’t even want to talk about how it has increased.

I really think the time has come that I move to budget billing, where you can spread the love over a 12-month period of time.

Oh, and gone are the days of me spending all day out in the yard working. In fact, it’s even been several weeks that I’ve gotten down and dirty. But on Thursday morning, I finally ventured out to cut back some shrubbery.

I nearly had a heat stroke. And to top it off, I didn’t even finish the job. Clippings are still all over the ground.

I’m thinking about setting my alarm clock for midnight. Maybe then the heat won’t be so bad, and I can bag up my debris.

I should probably let the police who patrol the area know, though. It might look kind of suspicious with a woman hovering near a house and stuffing items into a large black bag.

However, if a policeman were to stop to check out the goings on, maybe I could persuade him to lend a hand.

Naw, probably not.

He would more than likely make up some lame excuse, like he needed to get back to his cruiser and respond to a call coming in, while in fact, he was just wanting to report back to his squad the strange encounter he had with me.

I can only imagine how he would describe the scene. And for anyone that had their ear to a scanner, they would probably be laughing at me, too.

Seriously though, the heat is dangerous, and it doesn’t take long — I was only outside for a couple of hours — before your body begins feeling the effects.

Those who have outside jobs should certainly be cautious by staying hydrated and taking breaks to cool down. And you know we still have August to go.

Summer in Mississippi is always hot and humid. But lest I forget, winter will arrive, and I won’t be melting from the heat.

I’ll just be lamenting about the cold.

Hey, but if we get lucky, maybe we will have some snow. Which of course would eventually bring on another melting situation.