AND NOW ANOTHER DEAD APPLIANCE

AND NOW ANOTHER DEAD APPLIANCE

This is getting silly. We’ve had the mysterious death, resurrection, and final death of our oven. The washing machine decided to visit the great beyond. And now, just after a power outage, the air conditioning unit that covers the living room and kitchen is blowing hot air. While that is to be expected with politicians and troublesome relatives, it is unattractive in an air conditioner.

There are lots of ways to go with this. If I were of the left wing persuasion, I would think about calling this a ‘first world problem’ and sternly lecture myself about why I shouldn’t have air conditioning in the first place.

Or, I could go green and fret about power use and the fact that we are all going to fry in hell for using too much…blah…blah…blah and it will be hot there, too.

But I find I am not very interested in any of those approaches. Right now I am sitting under a ceiling fan, with sweat running down the back of my neck.

My sainted father would call this “stewing in my own juice” which I find both colorful and descriptive. I suppose after a few more days of this I will be really, really tender.

But all of this makes me think about heat and how everyone has fought it forever. I was born on June 15^th in a hospital before air conditioning. Happy to say all was well except for a huge dent in my forehead which the doctors smooshed around until I looked normal.

So it was hot in Kansas City that June and my mother informed my father that she would be happy to see him later but that he had better not show up without a fan. No fan…no visit with the baby.

Daddy happened to know a guy who owned an appliance store (this being the days before superstores and late hours…after 5 or 6, you were on your own). The guy opened the store, Daddy got the fan, and was allowed to visit. I still have the fan which has not much of a guard on it and would slice off your fingers in an instant.

In true ‘50s fashion, this fan with not much of a safety guard was kept at the bottom of our stairs to blow into the living room. This being the set of stairs heading up to the children’s rooms. Happy to say I still have all my fingers and toes.

Day Two

How much of human behavior has been influenced by the fact that we don’t like to be hot? Farmers traditionally worked early in the morning and late in the afternoon, saving the heat of the day for biscuits and indoor chores.  The cave dwellers in the desert figured out how to be relatively comfortable and thrive in hostile territory. But I doubt they were happy about it. No doubt they had early conversations like, “Damn, it’s hot out here.” “Yep, sure is. I wish I had a pool.”

You will never convince me that humans really like discomfort. Indigenous peoples aside, with all of their genius about how to live in difficult places, I have noted that much of the drive of advancing societies heads toward increasing comfort.

Day Three

Father’s Day. Out for breakfast. Do you honestly think I’m making waffles in this heat? Not a chance. Went to the pharmacy for more drugs. As if I need more, but apparently I do.

Inside, my husband bought me a fan. Shades of my birth. I’ve put it on the window seat so it blows right on me here at my desk. This is better, at least the sweat isn’t as hot as it runs down my neck.

Later note…we went to bed at about 7:45pm ostensibly to watch a movie and read books. I did both…even with the air conditioner on my body remembers that it has been too hot. I think my inner core is melting.

Day Four

It’s Monday morning and the AC man is here, bless him. Ah, the wilderness. Ants have climbed into the unit outside (now that sounds dirty) and they ate a contact switch. Really? Ants DO that? Apparently they do and this man happened to have such a switch on his truck. Cool air is blowing on my neck. Soon my face will stop sweating.

I feel vaguely guilty through all of this. I should be able to rise above this and learn to love the heat.  But, alas, I do not have a veranda. I do not have a discreet butler who will bring me minted tea in a sterling silver cup. No one here has ever made lemonade the correct way with a base of simple sugar syrup.

I need to work on that, in case the air conditioner dies again.

BTW…the AC man assures me that my “harmonics” are just fine and that my capacitors are functioning well. I am relieved.