It is HOT! I guess sweating out a lung is enough for most people to come to this conclusion on their own, but I just want to make it clear how freaking hot it is.

And all the ice creams! Oh, the poor, little ice creams. They never had a chance.

Ice cream used to be a luxury, and the idea of a lonely scoop melting away in the street would have caused a riot. Nowadays, it just causes passerbys to tear up a little. sniff.

Centuries ago, you had to plan months in advance to get your ice cream  in the summer: Before fridges came around, people would store the ice hacked from the surface of ponds or lakes in holes underground. It held surprisingly well, but you had to cram a lot in there to make it last.

Ice storage has been around since 1700 BC and so has the lust for a cold beverage in the heat of summer. Those special snow cones were probably held with an iron grip.

Can you imagine the embarrassment of dropping a ball of snow that had been carefully stored for 6 months…waiting in the dark until it was finally its turn to shine in the summer heat? Oh god. You’d probably try sucking up as much as you could from the sidewalk.