Well. This is what happens when it's this hot. People don't dare step outside for fear of being overwhelmed by a wave of stifling heat and perhaps melting to meet the scorching ground with a trickle.

So, you resort to desperate measures. Such as lingering in the kitchen - just for the change, because face it, the sitting room gets boring after having spent the entire day in there devouring a 300 page book with a disappointing ending.

Once in the kitchen, you may well be tempted to peel a carrot, just for the sake of it. The carrots are there, the peeler is to hand, what could possibly be more natural than picking up the peeler and running it repetetively across a wilting carrot? Nothing, I say. To add a bit of excitement, you could think of possibly introducing the skin on your thumb to the peeler.

There is, of course, the dreaded possibility that you might find yourself standing in the kitchen, as lost as you were orginally, but with the added baggage of a peeled, soggy, sad carrot in your left hand. What to do with it? Perform a ritualistic voodoo ceremony? Chop it up, start a peeled-and-chopped-carrot collection? Peel another carrot to keep the original happy? Perhaps even name the carrots (or chunks of)? Carrot One, Carrot Two, Carrot Three...

Maybe eat the carrot? Out of pure boredom and hotness? It's a distinct possibility.