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This week: Summer Edited by: Robert Waltz  
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A man says a lot of things in summer he doesn't mean in winter.
-Patricia Briggs, Dragon Blood
Summer's lease hath all too short a date.
-William Shakespeare
I know white clothing is supposed to enhance that summer glow, but writers don't tan.
-Diablo Cody |
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SUMMER
Well, technically summer doesn't start for another couple of weeks, but it's already June and it's either this or talk about my cats.
I'm addressing people in the Best Hemisphere, here; all you upside-down below-the-equator types might want to save this newsletter for six months and read it in December. Or not. Whatever.
My area gave spring a miss, this year, and skipped right into summer. One day, I had my heater cranked up full blast; the next, I went over and switched the thermostat from heat to A/C.
Incidentally, you want to know the best thing about owning your own house and not being broke? It's the ability to set the thermostat at whatever the hell you want. Yeah, yeah, environment, resources, whatever; none of that matters as long as I'm comfortable.
Anyway, yeah. Good old reliable central air. Every year, twice a year, I have a local HVAC guy (I'm not being sexist, here; it's always been a guy so far) come over and give my entire system a thorough overhaul. About ten years ago, maybe twelve, I'd had them come out and replace the whole thing, which is an operation on a scale resembling switching out the warp core on the USS Enterprise (reboot edition), only more expensive.
Thanks to my good old reliable central air system and its regular maintenance, I don't usually notice seasons. No more of this "winter, summer, etc." crap; now for me it's leaves season and no-leaves season. Some of my friends think that keeps me out of touch with the natural cycles of things; I just think it keeps me from having to deal with being too hot or too cold. And I like it that way.
But on Thursday night, I heard this high-pitched, whining, shrieking noise from outside. At first I thought it was my first wife coming to get me, but then I realized it was the heat exchanger on my HVAC unit.
After I turned off the A/C, I pried open a bunch of windows in my house and started to sweat.
Now, look, I know people who pick sides: "Oh, I'd rather be too hot than too cold - it's easy enough to cool down." "Oh, no, I'd rather be too cold - I can always put on more clothing." I remain neutral, and firmly in the "screw temperature extremes altogether" camp, which is why I'm a dedicated indoorsman with a fully functional central air system.
Except, of course, for last weekend. I started looking into local hotel prices, until I remembered I have a sick cat that I can't leave alone for too long. So, really, it's her fault that I was drenched in sweat over the weekend.
To make matters worse, I can't go very long without being on the computer (especially on newsletter deadline weekends), and that sucker heats up a room better than most space heaters.
I'm starting to wonder if I can't have them install a redundant backup system in my house. You know, to keep this from ever happening again. And a generator, while they're at it, so I can deal with the occasional power outage.
I wasn't always this way, you know. I grew uplived as a kid in a house without A/C, and with a father whose Depression-era mentality meant keeping the heat in winter limited to making sure the pipes didn't freeze.
Nature? Bah! That's why we have a neocortex and opposable thumbs. You can keep your freezing winters and sweltering summers - as long as society doesn't collapse and keeps providing me with cheap electricity.
Oh, when the maintenance guy showed up on Monday morning, guess what my A/C system didn't do. Take a wild guess.
...
That's right. It didn't malfunction. It sat there purring like a kitten. There was nothing wrong with it. He even stuck instruments into the thing to see if there was anything that might have caused it to start sounding like a phaser on overload. He left shaking his head, convinced that I was imagining things, or that I've been single long enough that the only social contact I get is with repair techs.
At least he didn't charge me. |
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Comedy: June 05, 2013 Issue [#5708]
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