It has been so stinking hot in DC the last few weeks that one would think that my extra weight would just be melting off of my bones... but that has yet to happen.
Last night we were sitting on the couch and I realized that I was damn hot... not in the "don't hate me because I am beautiful" type of hot, but the "my pits are sweating and my cha-cha is sticky" kind of hot.
I assumed that the air conditioner was just trying to keep up with the sweltering heat of the day and the house would cool itself down at night.
I woke up at 5 a.m. so cranky and uncomfortable that I thought my brain was on fire. I trudged down to the A/C controller to find out that it was 80 frigging degrees in this hell's hot hole that I like to call my house.
I think that maybe I didn't have the A/C set low enough and push the lever down to 60 degrees and go back to sleep only to wake again at 8 feeling as if I had just taken part in a jalapeno eating contest.
I came to the horrible realization that during the hottest week this summer our air conditioner decided to check out... on a Saturday no less when overtime pay is in place for Dave the Air Conditioning Whisperer.
As I sit her with cold rags on my neck and between my legs I wonder just how it was that I survived the summers of my childhood. My parents did not have air conditioning... it was a frivolous thing that we did not need, much like cable TV and Atari.
I remember sleeping in just my underpants and slapping mosquitoes became our favorite pastime that we used to lull ourselves into a heat induced coma each night.
What a wimp I have become that I cannot even handle a few hours with no A/C... I mean really, my mother raised me to be stronger than this. Wasn't it her that taught me how to take a cold bath and lay on the couch with the fan pointed directly upon her while she shouted things like "No you can't come in the house, drink out of the hose!" and "You don't need sunscreen!"
I am going to follow in the footsteps of the best mother I know and go lay on the couch and moan as if I were in pain from the heat. Maybe I can get one of these kids of mine to bring me a cold soda from the fridge and then scream "Shut the refrigerator door! What are you trying to air condition the entire house?"
And my kids complain that we don't have any family traditions...
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
5 comments:
Gawd...how miserable. Hopefully you all get it fixed! I remember those days too, we had to play and entertain ourselves and couldn't come in unless it was raining!
Yuck! My a/c hasn't worked since I bought my place and I can't use a window unit in my complex, but at least we're further north than you.
Cool baths, cool compresses, lots of fans and water...oh, and open up the house in the evening and close it up first thing in the morning! It can get a little stuffy, but nowhere near as bad as it gets if you leave the house open all day!
Look at the bright side - at least your hair is short! :-)
I remember visiting my grandparents every summer and they did not have air conditioning. In Texas, that is unheard of and yet we survived somehow.
Well, yes, people have been surviving for centuries without air conditioning, even right by the Equator. That doesn't mean it's pleasant! ;-)
Oh good lord you are FUNNY!!! For perhaps the first time since the invention of the internet, LOL actually means that a real person actually truly laughed, out loud, at what you wrote. Love it, love it. Loved your back-and-forth with your dad, too, about the butt doctors ("are you sure they're all doctors??!"). You are the funny woman I wish I was!
Post a Comment