Ahh....the joys of central air conditioning.......

[poltr1]

Today was a day where I'm thankful to have an office job, and not an outdoor job or factory job. It hit 94 here today, tying the record high. The morning wasn't too bad, but by afternoon, it was quite hot out. My boss said that going outside was like walking into a walk-in oven.

My work site has A/C. My home has A/C. My car has A/C. How did people manage to live without it?

Somehow, they did. The old-style farmhouses, and many city homes build before WW II, didn't have it. My parents' house, which was built in the mid-1950s, didn't have it. (And they don't want it.)

I remember some of the hot days during the summers of my childhood. We'd open the doors and windows, drag out the fans, and keep the fans running. I'd spend time in the basement, where it was always nice and cool. A few summers, I practically lived in the basement. We had a studio couch that folded flat into a bed, and that's where I slept.

Sometiems I wonder: Are we a less-than-hardy race, now that we've been spoiled by air conditioning? If electricity were to become more scarce and/or more expensive, would air conditioning disappear or be curtailed? Would we have to keep our thermostats set to 78 degrees so that cooling doesn't go below that point?

While I could probably learn to live without it for a few days, R is definitely addicted to A/C.

Comments

[peteralway.livejournal.com]

Hmmmm I remember lying awake at night as sweat pooled in--well not my eye sockets really, but around my eyes so if I opened them they stung. I remember the brother I roommed with having a fan, and everyone else in the hous insisting we point it outward, to ventilate the house--which was great for everyone except us, who got the hot exhaust air.

I like my air conditioning.