Monday, July 20, 2009

(Not So) Cool

One of the best quirky things about our house is that for some reason the air conditioning is most generous to the master bedroom. I'm not sure why; we have the same number of vents that the other bedrooms have, and all the vents in every room are opened, but I'll admit I don't want to do too much searching. I like feeling refrigerated. I love that though the thermostat is set to 78, my room feels more like 70. It's heaven.

I was enjoying the coolness yesterday afternoon while taking a nap after Church. Cold sheets, cold pillow--sheer bliss. In the evening we went to the home of a man in our ward who is a retired astrophysicist for JPL and who has written several books on planets and planetary rings and whose library walls are covered with framed awards and honors from NASA. He had an incredible Powerpoint presentation to show us, and he taught us all kinds of blow-your-mind type of stuff about the immensity of space, but the point of me telling you this is to get to the fact that when we got home, around 10pm, it was hotter upstairs than when we left, even though the A/C was running. The air coming out was not cold, and I was not happy.

Me no like hot.

We turned off the unit and I tried to swelter to sleep, but I just couldn't do it. All I could think about was how it was 109 degrees today and it's supposed to be hot all week long, and how grouchy I get when it's hot with no relief. I was having flashbacks of four years ago when we moved into this house in August, having been told that it had air conditioning, when in fact it did not. I remembered how that happened to be the summer of record-breaking heat, and how we sat there, newly married, having only just met 10 weeks earlier, staring at each other and our 5 red-faced, sweaty kids, nearly dying of heat stroke while everything we owned was stacked in boxes all around us. I remembered how our cat almost died. He wouldn't eat, he wouldn't drink, he just layed there. We'd have to put him in a tub of cold water every day just to keep him from slipping into a heat-induced coma.

It was awful. We didn't get the promised air conditioning until March of the next year.

I cannot do that again. For real.

At 1:30am, I took a pillow and went downstairs to sleep on the couch where, thankfully, it was cooler. At 3:30am, I had just barely dozed off to sleep when the lights were flung on in the livingroom and I about scared Adam to death as he came down for a middle-of-the-night snack. He hadn't even come to bed yet, as he was working, so he didn't know I'd come downstairs to sleep. You should have seen how much air he caught in his terror of hearing a voice yell, "Hey!" at 3:30 in the morning when he turned on the light. I'm still laughing about it. Fear reactions (after the fact, of course) have got to be one of the funniest things ever.

Anyway, not much sleep last night. At 7am it was already 84 degrees upstairs. It's going to be a long day. I put in a call to our landlord and begged him to save us.

Now we wait. And sweat. I'm so, so tired. But I'm afraid that if I fall asleep I may never wake up again.

Death might be better.

10 comments:

Kimberly Vanderhorst said...

As someone who melts when it gets ANYWHERE above 80 you have my very deepest sympathies!

Abby said...

I'm the same way! I looovveeeee being cold! It's so much easier to wrap a blanket around yourself or add layers if it's too cold..if it's too hot? Forget about it. Naked and sweaty and sticky and ewwwww. Not my thing. Ask Hannah and Amanda..growing up, I would open the window in the winter so my face would be nice and cool all night long. They would yell at me. I just like it.

You guys turned it all the way off? And it's been off for over 12 hours? Maybe it's done defrosting? Maybe you can turn it back on now? Shoot, put your bras in the freezer! Part of you will perk right up hahaha!

Here's to hoping you guys cool down super soon!

Megan said...

I seriously feel ya! It's 80 in the house and nearly 110 outside. We're having some weird humidity, too which makes our MasterCool work not so well. And sitting through 2 45-minute swim lessons at different times in the day... bleck! We're just trying to stay hydrated. I sure am tired, though.

Josi said...

Mine does this and it's usually something clogging the filter or the outside screens. But I SO hate it when that happens. I hate being hot. Good luck.

Anonymous said...

The bad thing is when I remember how nice and cool it is at the mall.

Don said...

Yeah, we had us some AC problems this summer in the middle of triple-digit heat. I feel for ya.

I'm crossing my fingers that you can get it fixed soon. The hassle of being a renter is having little control over the timing of the repairs. At least the cost won't come out of your hide.

Our new compressor was installed within a couple of days, but wiped out our emergency fund and pretty much every other spare cent we had. :(

Saint Holiday said...

Poor little critter! When will your trials end? It's too cool here in Show Low to turn on the AC. 70 degrees, overcast and threatening rain again, because the monsoon is here. I'll be thinking of you in my coolness, wishing you were here. We should all get together: Noah has the growing fame; Abidoo has the desserts; Hannah has the Christmas movies; Big Eyes has the swimming pool; I have the catbox. Wait; I have the, uh, what do I have? Dried beans! Birds! That's it; I have dried beans and birds and a big back yard, with chickens and weeds. Well, we could have a grand time. I love you. Sorry for your tragic loss.

The Ancient of Weeks

Rachel Sue said...

Call that landlord and keep on calling! When our AC went out in the house we were renting and it was September, I called the landlord and begged them to replace it. Which they did. In September. Because I was a brat. Sometimes, it pays off.

* said...

So sorry for the A/C issues & the heat.

We live in Las Vegas, a serious heat trap (that I love all the same)...and one summer (perfect time of yr for it) our A/C broke.

Our house went up to 94 degrees. I remember...my candles started to warp and my chocolate bars all melted in their wrappers. It was a sad sad day. I had to take our baby twins & toddler daughter in our air conditioned van to cool off until it was finally fixed.

I love A/C repairmen. Almost as much as my husband. ;)

Luisa Perkins said...

Nooooooo! How awful. Any progress?