I was expecting the heating and air guy to show up sometime today. I was NOT expecting him when I was sans bra at 8:15 in the morning. I mean, not that I BLAME him– all the better to crawl around up on top of our roof without getting cooked like a bug on a car hood, right?
But it did put off my morning walk a little, and by the time I got out at 10:30, it was 92 degrees at 30% humidity. By this afternoon, it was 104 degrees, same humidity.
I recognize that there are hotter places– that meme of Florida being like the surface of the sun has been passed around a lot, and I seem to recall New York being a bit swampy in August but none of that changes the fact that sometimes, some days, it’s just better to hunker down in the air conditioning and do all that stuff on your desk that you were fleeing the fuck away from during vacation last week.
Today was one of those day, and thank heavens the Air Conditioning was working. We had to replace a part–I didn’t even have to ask Mate. See, I was raised with tough people. Country people. I visit my parents and it’s 90 degrees in their house and the kids whine and I whine and they laugh at us for being soft and stupid and weak.
Mate doesn’t.
Mate is the opposite.
I used to have this regimen, right?
Where every night I would turn off the AC and run around and turn on all the fans so that we would get a cross breeze and we would save money, and I would be the daughter of tough, hardworking people.
And it was sort of like the thing where I didn’t dry my laundry I hung it up on clotheslines.
I did that too.
And one day, Mate came home and said, “I will work any amount of overtime just could I please not have fucking stickers in my underwear?”
Same thing with air conditioning. “For the love of God, I will do anything, plant trees, give to charity, just please, for sweet fuck’s sake turn on the fucking AC. And while you’re at it, turn it down.”
So when it comes to forking over a part to make the AC better, I know it’s not a problem.
Just as I know he doesn’t think I”m a bad mother when, at one in the afternoon, our son turns to me and says, “Yay! I’m creating Carbon Dioxide!”
Because really, that’s all he’s done all day, and we like to celebrate our accomplishments.
Now tomorrow, we’re going to the pool, and there will be dance, and some movement and industry will be expressed.
But for tonight, the air conditioning is on, and we’re all hibernating like the useless mammals we are.
