and I don’t like it
It’s 86 degrees and I’m sitting, sweating, and swearing. I’m miserable. That’s because 86 degrees is the indoor temperature.
You see, on one of the hottest, humid streaks of summer imaginable, the air conditioner in my little lake house has decided to quit cooling. And the fans and portable AC unit I’ve brought out aren’t helping at all. What’s worse, I suppose my heating and cooling guy has decided I have leprosy because he’s barely returning my calls and texts. In fact, when I finally talked to him, he told me he couldn’t make a service call to my house because he had to go to a funeral home with an emergency AC problem. I guess someone at a visitation must’ve said it was hotter than hell and upset the deceased’s family.
As I sit in an ever expanding pool of sweat, I’ve begun to wonder about all of us. We’ve become soft. I was almost out of high school before we had air conditioning in my house, and somehow we got by. Usually it was early June when my father would pull out a giant fan that sat on a homemade wooden base. It had no back, so the blades were totally exposed. It’s a good thing I didn’t sleepwalk or I would have lost several fingers. This propeller of death was strategically placed in our hallway. Once we opened the rear windows in the house, Dad hit the button and it roared to life, making a sound that was about as loud as a Cessna airplane. The fan pulled the cooler outside air inside, along with loose paint chips off the wall.
I was telling this story to someone last night and they said, “Well, I know what I would do. I would be checking in a hotel ASAP.” That’s my point. What was once considered normal, even if it was uncomfortable, has now become unbearable.
It not just homes. For example, if I told you my automobile was not equipped with AC, you would look at me like I had just described an alien abduction. But when I was a child, we never had air-conditioned cars, unless you count the 470 system every automobile had. That’s 4 windows rolled down while you’re going 70 miles an hour. What’s worse is our car had black vinyl seats. It was like riding in an air fryer. If I was wearing shorts, then the back of my legs got a chemical peel without the chemicals.
Looking back, it’s hard to believe that every summer my dad would pack us in a 1963 Chevy Impala with no cold air and drive to Panama City. That was the real reason we left at 4 a.m., to beat the heat. My wife easily one upped me: In July 1959, their family loaded six people into a hot Chevrolet and drove to New York! Nowadays, I won’t get in a hot car to drive to Walmart.
When I was a kid, the best way to get temporary relief from the summertime heat was to go to a movie. The theaters even advertised the fact they had air conditioning. Oh, that wonderful feeling of walking through the doors and feeling a rush of cool, cool air! Forget how bad the movie was; you were blissfully comfortable for a couple of precious hours.
The first taste of air conditioning in a 1960s house was the window unit. This was a device that made so much noise you couldn’t hear the TV. And since it only cooled part of the house, rooms that weren’t in use were closed off. I remember opening the door to my grandmother’s bathroom and being met with a giant blast of heat. It was like peeing in a sauna. Once I scorched my bottom when I sat on the toilet. It was a black seat lid, by the way.
Eventually, Dad sprang for central air, and when Mom’s next car had AC, the ordeal finally ended. We joined millions of other people on a journey to a softer, more comfortable life. By the way, all of these changes occurred about the same time I was leaving for college. Nice timing by my parents.
As for now, the sweat that’s getting in my eyes is making it almost impossible for me to read what I’m typing. So, I’m going to hydrate, call the AC guy and try to convince him that if he doesn’t move my little house to the top of his service list, soon he may be visiting another place with dead people inside.
Joe Hobby is a standup comedian, a syndicated columnist, and a long-time writer for Jay Leno. He’s a member of Cullman Electric Cooperative and is very happy now that he can use Sprout from his little place on Smith Lake. Contact him at [email protected].
