It’s all in what you’re used to…
…when it comes to hot weather.
My wife and I lived in houses without air conditioning when we were growing up. Her north Georgia house finally go A/C after she had long-since moved out; my north Florida house got A/C when I was in college. When hot weather came, we turned on the fans, sat on the front porch and drank iced tea, hers with sugar and mine with lemon.
Our A/C unit was limping along at the end of last week and finally quit on Sunday. Sunday’s the most popular day of the week for stuff breaking down. Fortunately, the temperature got down into the high 60s last night, so we were finally able to get some cooler air in the house.
Nonetheless, our cats acted like the A/C breakdown was our fault.
Okay, I know people are living in places where the daily temps are always over 100. I don’t want to hear about it. They’re used to it. Plus, my DNA was probably altered by the fact I was born across the bay from foggy and usually cool San Francisco. When I was a kid, 88 wasn’t too bad.
But, years of soft living with A/C, have conditioning me to need ten degrees cooler–if not more. I’m a winter person in spite of growing up in the land of hurricanes, alligators and hot weather. So, until the repairman arrives this afternoon with a replacement part for the unit, I’m not a happy camper even though I’m not actually camping. To add insult to injury, iced tea now gives me heartburn.
Maybe we’re all just getting older. (You may want to write that down.) Maybe 88 degrees is hotter now than it was fifty years ago. Maybe it’s global warming and the weathermen have inflated the temps to keep up and it’s really 120 in the shade outside.
If worse comes to worse, I suppose we could go sit in the car with the A/C up on high.
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To segue to another sun-related subject, Second Wind Publishing will be releasing my novel The Sun Singer this week in e-book and paperback editions. That’s cool news after the novel has been out of print for a year. I’m looking forward to the new edition.
