Summers in North Carolina are akin to having a fever. The heat is palpable. You walk around with a fine sheen of sweat on all exposed (and sometimes unexposed) skin. The air is so thick you could cut it with a knife and that humidity never abates.

All summer you live for that last day, the day the fever breaks. When the mornings have a chill to the air and the humidity disappears so completely that you forget it was ever there. Sometimes the fever returns, but never as strong. Gone are the days of 24/7 AC, the nights and mornings of open windows and crickets singing have arrived.