Ten Things I Hate About Not Having AC

1. Sweat. I’ve discovered that you have sweat glands everywhere. Enough said.

2. Air. The air doesn’t just get hot. It gets fetid. The humidity becomes thick and sluggish. And you begin smelling odd odors that turn your stomach. And you wonder—okay, maybe you don’t—but I wonder if there’s ever been a murder in the house because things smell like rotting bodies.

3. Sleeping. Sharing a bedroom with lots of people. We’re all crammed into one bedroom because the wall air conditioner cools only one room. We don’t have any snorers, but I’m a very light sleeper. Every wheeze, deep breath, and flutter of a sheet wakes me up.

4. AF. Now I have to listen to Artemis Fowl when I go to bed at night. Don’t get me wrong, I loved most of the AF books. But I don’t like to listen to them when I fall asleep. Matt and Jake do. They both have difficulty sleeping so they listen to books on tape until they fall asleep. It might work for me too, except that they keep the volume low and it sounds like the buzz of a persistent fly.

5. Irritability. As air conditioning dependent people, we haven’t learned the sanctifying art of dealing with the heat. Instead of developing patience, we tend to scowl and gripe. Jacob believes in the sanctifying effect of playing Wii all day to prevent snappishness. I don’t. Like I said—irritablitiy.

6. Fluids. I drink tea by the gallon full. For example, it’s 9 am and I’ve already had three glasses of iced tea. Thankfully, I don’t like mine sweet or I’d need insulin by the end of the day. Time to buy stock in Lipton.

7. Housework. No one wants to do housework. It’s not like anyone normally wants to do housework, but now you’d think I was asking them to gouge out their eyes.

8. Cooking. Turning on a stove or an oven seems like sacrilege. On the other hand, the guys don’t think that gazpacho is a complete meal.

9. Dog. Our dog wears a thick black coat year round. Not bad in the winter. Miserable in the summer. More miserable without AC. So Jezebel sleeps in our bedroom. But Jezebel thinks that we should get up when the sun is up. The sun gets up really early down here in Chattanooga, and after a night of Artemis Fowl followed by waking every half an hour when someone coughs or rolls over...well, you get the idea—Jez and I do not agree about the time to get up in the morning.

10. Waiting. The worst thing is waiting by the phone for the AC guys to call and tell you what day they might be able to show up and replace the AC. (It’s almost as bad as waiting to hear back from a literary agent who asked for a full submission of your latest novel. Almost as bad. But not quite.)


News Flash: the AC guys finally called. They can be here on...Friday. I'm telling myself that a week without AC is no biggie. But I'm having a hard time believing it.