Mickey's Musings
I have stories to tell.

 

 

It’s our first hot spell this summer and everything was fine until today (the start of the hot spell).  I can’t believe what my central air conditioner did to me.  It worked fine during the few hot days we had in the spring, but as soon as it was absolutely necessary, the thing died without a cough, a shudder, or any preamble whatsoever.  I just woke up this morning to a house that was uncomfortably warm and striding toward unbearably hot.

 

Yes, I realize that this is a first-world problem.  I get that but dammit, I live in a first-world country where I have been spoiled by first-world comforts.

 

I remember growing up in a world that had no air conditioning.  We baked in the summer heat.  We were miserable, but we got used to it as children usually do.  We simmered all day at school and baked all night at home.  I remember getting my lips and tongue stuck to a metal ice-cube tray in the freezer because I wanted something really cold.  I remember wondering why all that nice, cold air in the fridge and freezer couldn’t be harnessed somehow, in order to make our environment bearable.  We were constantly stewing in our own sweat.

 

I didn’t get an air conditioner until I was in my late 20s.  Somehow, as I got older, I couldn’t take the heat anymore and I couldn’t sleep at night.  Thank heaven for classified ads selling used window air conditioners.  After I got one, I really did feel heavenly in the bedroom at night.  I became so used to that wonderfully personalized microenvironment that I could not sleep without it.

 

As I got older, things really began to rock and roll.  The “power surges” that accompany the process of a woman’s body turning against her as she ages begins an entirely new and unparalleled realm of perpetual misery.  Have you ever felt like you would spontaneously combust without the slightest bit of exertion?  Just standing (or laying) still, doing nothing at all, you suddenly break out in a sweat that rivals that of any triathlon participant in the desert.

 

Your husband enjoys using you as a space heater in the winter (although he complains when you crack the window at night and it’s 20 degrees Fahrenheit outside).  In the summer, hubby has to cover up with blankets because you want to sleep at about the temperature of a meat locker.  Hubby eventually stops complaining because the evil glare you give him could probably be fatal, eventually.

 

Am I rambling?  I think my brain is melting.  I shake my head to see if I can hear a sloshing sound.  No, no sloshing, just a headache for now.  I think I need a nice, cool shower and a phalanx of fans focused on every inch of my body in bed.  Maybe I can even move the fan phalanx to the bathroom, lie in the tub and melt ice cubes on myself while enjoying the breeze.

 

Think cool, cool thoughts.  Ahh…