I consider this one of the turning points on the UAE calendar. Like, in the U.S., where July 4 marks the start of serious summer and Labor Day the end.

Here? It was still May when … I turned off the water heater for the shower.

This is when you should be devising ways to flee the country.

I may have mentioned this a year ago, too. I remember that day in the teeny apartment when I realized that “cold water” was now a function of a refrigerator. Not of a spigot.

The daytime heat begins to become unbearable here in April. Consistently unbearable. By May, it’s 100 degrees on most days, and the day begins to push 13.5 hours in length. May is more dire than April because it begins to not cool off at night. Doesn’t get under 80, that is. And it may not get under 90. (Which will be the case for all of July, August and September; never, ever under 90 degrees. Not even in the hour before sunrise.)

About two-thirds of the way down this entry is a list of the average temps by month. We’re hotter than usual this year. Grand.

What all that heat means is … that any water coming through the system is going to be heated whenever the pipes are near the surface (which must be often), or when it goes up to reservoirs above an apartment, which seems to be common in this neighborhood.

Thus, you turn on the “cold” water and you get sun-heated water.

A “comfortable” temperature for shower/bath water is 100 degrees, and before the month of May was over … it was already there.

To heat the water further was overkill. You already can shower in it. Why run the heater?

So, I stepped out of the bathroom and flipped the red switch on the wall that runs the heater.

It is in the “off” position …  and no doubt will remain there until at least October.

In August, there will be days when the “cold” water is so hot that standing in it for more than brief spells is painful. September is like that, too.

Again, this is when you look to leave the country. I noticed fewer people in Abu Dhabi last summer, and it makes perfect sense. Everyone who can afford to leave, does.

We are going to Istanbul in another week … and we hope to lose 20-25 degrees. And then we will be gone more than three weeks (inshallah) for most of Augusts, the most hideous month of all.

A Pakistani cab driver assured me the other day that this kind of heat is rare for his country. In the UAE, he said, “Too much hot.”

“Yes,” I said. “Too much hot.”