Air Wars.
June 17th, 2006 by Kevin
It’s hot. It’s in the nineties, and it’s supposed to stay that way for at least a few more days.
This is subject to change at any given moment, of course, because this is Chicago and for all I know it may drop down to forty degrees during the next five minutes.
I don’t think any Chicagoan would be surprised if it started to snow in June. We’d just continue eating some greasy-assed deep-fried meat covered in cheese with a side of lard, say, “You fuckin’ believe that?”, and go on about our business.
God bless the Midwest.
Anyway, it’s damned hot, and here at Chez Trance we have begun the fight that will last all summer long - whether or not to run the AC.
We have central air conditioning. This to me is a modern convenience that should be utilized as often as is necessary. It ranks up there with the microwave, the computer box, and indoor plumbing on the list of Shit I Do Not Wish To Live Without.
When the indoor temperature rises above eighty, the AC should be turned on. When there is no breeze and the air is stiflingly hot, open windows do not provide adequate ventilation. One good sign of this is the four cats that can be seen sprawled out on the front porch floor, gasping for breath and desperately attempting to claw off their own fur.
Try telling this to the moms.
I’ve slowly come to realize over the years that my mother has some sort of freakish medical condition that causes her to be cold no matter what the temperature. Perhaps her blood is thin. Perhaps her skin is thin. Perhaps it’s because she weighs roughly forty-seven pounds soaking wet.
Perhaps she has no blood at all, having been sucked dry by some sort of Anne Rice-esque vampire that roams the streets at night. Perhaps she was mauled by some dark, brooding beast that heard the faint strains of snoring from her window and drained her of Type AB one evening, sparing the rest of the household because he had taken his fill from my mother’s delicate arteries.
You never know.
It could also be, however, that she simply enjoys torturing me because I am her exact opposite - a person who is never cool enough (in the temperate sense of the word - of course I am cooler than ice in the funky fresh sense).
I am always hot. Always. I radiate heat. Even in the winter I walk around the house in tank tops because I cannot stand the fact that the heat is on. I loathe the heat. I cannot stand being in a vehicle in which the heat is on. Fuck heat.
My body rarely sweats, partially due to the fact that my stupidfuckingmedication makes me less able to sweat (this is the case with several types of medication, oddly enough), and partially due to the fact that it just never has. Thankfully I don’t walk around with big sweat patches under my arms or on my back.
My head, however, sweats buckets. Floods. Oceans. I never even attempt to make my hair look presentable during the summer because I know that within fifteen minutes it will be damp and curly due to my Amazing Mist Head.
My forehead is constantly red and sweaty as well. Wearing any sort of makeup to counteract this doesn’t fly. As you may imagine, I look terribly attractive.
“Um, I’m going to talk to that brunette chick. you go talk to the redhead.”
“No way am I talking to the sweaty girl. She looks like her head’s going to explode.”
When I am home, I feel as if I should not have to deal with this phenomenon. After all, I am master of my domain. I can control the temperature by simply pushing a button.
My mother does not think that I am master of my domain. In fact, I don’t even think she thinks that I live here. To her, I am simply a guest who whines about the heat and must be squelched.
“We don’t need the air on.”
“It’s ninety degrees.”
“I’m not hot.”
“I’m pouring sweat. The J-Man has passed out. The cats are slowly dying. All my candles are melting.”
“I’m not hot.”
And truly, she isn’t hot. She’s wearing a sweatshirt and jeans in ninety-degree weather, and she isn’t hot. She looks as fresh and crisp as a fucking head of lettuce.
Maybe she’s a cyborg. Or an alien.
“Please, please can we put the air on? I’m dying.”
“No, the bill’s going to be too high.”
“Funny how you don’t care about the bill in the winter, when the heat is on eighty-five.”
In the winter, our house is so hot that the windows all fog up. Every stray animal in the neighborhood sits in our front yard and warms itself by leaning against the siding. No snow can stick to the roof, because it steams.
She is evil and must be stopped.
Last night I bitched and bitched and bitched until she relented. I sat near a vent and sighed, feeling the cool articifical breeze wash over me in a satisfying wave.
Five minutes later it was off.
I’m going to buy a pith helmet with a fan in it and start wearing it in the house, I swear.
Let her explain it to the company.
Happy Weekend.
golfwidow wrote on 06/17/06 at 12:05 pm :
Holmes Stand Fan. Cheaper than running the a/c and kicks ass at moving air. Also has a thermostat so you can set it to go on automatically when the temperature goes above a certain level. http://www.holmesproducts.com. Love this thing. Love. Roman numeral one, less than three, the Holmes Stand Fan.
Tara wrote on 06/17/06 at 1:35 pm :
Start walking around naked. Tell her she can layer if she’s cold, but there’s only so much you can take off. Heh, I’m in Memphis, 101 yesterday. There’s just no reason for that!
schmutzie wrote on 06/17/06 at 1:42 pm :
Nice new digs!
Dan L wrote on 06/17/06 at 1:50 pm :
She’s old, and is burning cooler than you are.
And she knows how expensive air conditioning is,
electricity-wise. Old people can pinch pennies until
the copper screams. It costs about half as much to
RAISE the temperature with natural gas as it does
to LOWER the temperature with electricity.
80 degrees at about 50 percent humidity is tolerable
if you have an electric fan or ceiling fan. Our animals
often camp out in the artificial breeze created by these
fine machines.
Talleyho wrote on 06/17/06 at 2:35 pm :
A sure thing that is cheap, easy, and will solve how to wear your hair: baseball cap filled with ice and placed on head. You may put your ice in a plastic bag if you don’t wish the furniture to be soaked, or you may just walk around with a towel around your neck which will catch the runoff and cool you from the neck up.
My hubby taught me this trick, he learned it in the Philipines where the heat & humidity are unrelenting.
Since this is my first post to your message center I will have to tell you that you document your daily comings and goings with wonderful humour and descriptive detail.
We should have breakfast at Lou Mitchell’s sometime, eh?
no1sgirl wrote on 06/17/06 at 3:47 pm :
Since this is my first post to your message center I will have to tell you that you document your daily comings and goings with wonderful humour and descriptive detail.
I totally agree. That’s why I’ve kept coming here for the last4 years or so. Love your take on life. Love it.
Anyway, it sounds like some of these folks have good ideas for you to keep cool.
However, I think I have to agree with you. Eventhough it does cost, A/C is the way to go! There is no sense in your mother making you suffer like that. Hm…I wonder if you can call Adult Protective Services on her for such abuse?
I’d definatly use that as leverage to get her to let you and everyone else be comfortable.
Trance wrote on 06/17/06 at 3:57 pm :
LOL…Adult protective services…
Thanks to all. I still think my stylish helmet is the way to go.
We do have fans running. They just seem inadequate when the J-Man and I are watching our skin melt off.
Thankfully my stepdad is coming over tonight and I know he will have none of this No-AC shit. So even though it irks me to no end that HE can get her to turn the damned thing on, I’m glad as hell he’s coming.
warcrygirl wrote on 06/17/06 at 5:25 pm :
It always irritates me that people who are cold natured insist on keeping the AC off when all they have to do to be comfortable is to put a fucking sweater on. I’m not as bad as you but I do love me some AC.
monkey-king wrote on 06/17/06 at 5:28 pm :
Dear god, woman - do you really read all those blogs on a regular basis?
Meg wrote on 06/17/06 at 6:02 pm :
I hear those pith helmets also make great fries.
As for the heat deal: I thank the heavens above my Mom is as affected by the heat as I am. One trick I’ve learned that works in concert with the central air is to always keep a Magic Bag (those bags with beans or seeds or whatever in them) in the freezer, then whip it out and wear it around my neck like a boa from heaven.
Mary wrote on 06/17/06 at 6:19 pm :
I’m with warcrygirl, it is no fair that the people who are always cold are the ones who control the thermostat when all they have to do is put on another layer. We can’t claw our skin off when we’re too hot. I am the daughter of an always cold person, married to an always cold person, work with always cold people. Someday I’m going to live alone and leave the windows open in winter.
Ravyncrow wrote on 06/17/06 at 7:22 pm :
I hear ya! Man I HATE Hot … Summer is my absolutely least-fav season. I prefer winter and fall. Luckily, Partner likes it cool as well, however he will still last longer with no A/C than I do. I always have to sneak it down a notch or 2. My comfort zone is around 40-70 degrees. His parents used to keep it at 90 in the house and it drove him nuts. But I will keep it down to 68 in the summer, with a fan on, and he doesn’t want to turn the A/C on until it hits 85 … in the winter, though, we never turn on the furnace. If it gets too cold for him he puts a fire in the wood stove. If it gets too cold for me I just put on a jacket
I do like fresh air though, so if it were up to me I’d have the A/C going full blast in the summer with the doors and windows open …. 
Kungfukitten wrote on 06/18/06 at 1:57 am :
I like the naked idea. You could also do some evil things like sneak habanero peppers into her food to induce sweating. If she’s menopausal you could mess with her hormones - replace her hormone patches with nicotine patches so she starts having hot flashes again. Perhaps a little cayenne pepper in her morning coffee?
A friend of mine who was stationed in Panama said that an icepack held between the wrists cooled the blood and would allow her to cool down enough to fall asleep. I don’t know if that’s biologically possible, but it doesn’t stop me from trying it everytime the temp goes above 90.
mish wrote on 06/18/06 at 5:28 am :
i from too prefer cold. You get cold - put more clothes on, but when you are naked and just sitting at night and still sweating, that just plain sucks. Also pet peeve:”Crystal Silicon Solar Cells have lifetime expectancy” ok, they have a lifetime expectancy. for what? Their lifetime? And how long is that…..THEY dont tell you; they dont want you to know.
michael wrote on 06/18/06 at 11:48 am :
We have a big shop fan that we face so it blows air out the window and then open one window in the other rooms and it pulls a breeze through; it works. Then again we live out in the country and don’t have heat radiating from a bunch of concrete or other houses. I say take the “When I’m hot the fuckbrain is worse” route. I am not ashamed to say that I’ve used the “I have a FUCKING MEDICAL CONDITION and when I get and stay hot it GETS WORSE!!” excuse a few times. That coupled with letting my eyes glaze over as I lay in the floor directly under the ceiling fan usually seems to work. But you have to be able to pull off a convincing near-coma look.
lisa-marie wrote on 06/18/06 at 11:48 am :
I know what you mean, Jen, my scalp sweats like a soaker hose when I get hot. It is horribly embarassing!
me wrote on 06/19/06 at 10:46 am :
I definately need one of those hats. I too loathe the heat and love the cold. 68 or 69 is my preferred tempature all year round.
Before I moved out my mom was the same way. She still sets the a/c at 75 and the heat at 60 and is afraid of the bill being “too high”.
Unluckily I too do not sweat, not even out the top of my head so I get to bake from the inside out.
Karyn wrote on 06/23/06 at 10:46 pm :
I am so like you… I have the air on in the winter. My hubbie and I are always fighting over it. I had a hysterectomy 10 years ago, and you’d think he would be used to it by now… My children walk around the house in jackets, blankets wrapped around themselves, year round… LOL!
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