Hot and Bothered

It was a dark and stormy night…seriously it was. And it was also hot and humid (humid being that it was raining). We learned two things on that Thursday evening a few weeks back. One of those things was that having your air conditioner crap out during Louisiana’s 90° days (or 75° nights) is considered a maintenance emergency. The other thing we learned was that, even though maintenance would come to your apartment at 10 p.m. on a weeknight, they weren’t really prepared to do much. Our guy just kind of shrugged his shoulders and said the equivalent of “I dunno.” But he brought us a window unit to see us through the night. And we, in our innocence, thought it would be just one night. How wrong we were.

Now I’m not a spoiled brat or anything…ok, yes, I am. But when the weather is hot, which it is quite often here and I rarely complain about it because I like it, I do like to sleep in a nice, cool room. But I digress, as I so often do.

Day one consisted of a lot of “hmm’s” and “uhhh’s”. Not much got accomplished. Day two, which was Saturday, was pretty much the same. Sunday…oh, no, we don’t work on Sunday’s. By Monday, I was ready to blow a gasket. They decided that it was wired wrong and proceeded to “rewire” the inside unit. The outside unit, which was built before I was born (and that’s a long time ago), was fine. Or so they said. After two more days of this, they got it working. Then discovered that it was blowing warm air and wouldn’t shut off. Wednesday was when they decided they needed to order parts. My reaction? Not pleasant, I assure you. “We don’t know how long it will take to get the parts in seeing as tomorrow is a holiday.” But to pacify me, they brought another window unit. Which went in my daughter’s room because , amazingly enough, my bedroom window is sealed shut. Because it’s in the back of the building on the ground floor.

So my ceiling fan stayed on high, making me feel as though I were sleeping in a wind tunnel. An 80°+ wind tunnel. I tried sleeping on the couch because the other window unit was in my dining room which connects to my living room. While my couch is quite comfortable to sit on, a bed it is not. Too short, too narrow and it has this high back on it that gets in my way when I try to roll over. So I’m used to sleeping in divine comfort on a queen sized bed. I admit it. I can’t help it. And as I’ve already noted, I’m spoiled.

We’re moving on to week two.  Elijah has been sleeping with his mother, since her room is cool and comfy. I’m spending as much time as I possibly can in the living room. But I have to sleep some time. So back into the wind tunnel I go. When I walk out of the room, I have feel as if I’ve been listening to extremely loud music for a very long time. My eardrums are pulsating and my head is humming.

Parts ordered are received. We’re back to having two men’s asses sticking out of the cabinet that houses our inside unit and water heater. A lot of cussing and head scratching (I’m grateful that I work during the day and got to miss most of this part). The maintenance men insisted that we keep the fan running at all times to keep air circulating in the apartment. They didn’t seem to realize, or perhaps didn’t care, that it was blowing warm air. We didn’t take their advice and shut it off each evening after they had left for the day. 

After another agonizing four days, the unit was replaced and it was turned on for the first time. It blew a deliciously icy blast and I sighed in relief. The only downside was that new unit is extremely noisy but hey, I can live with that as long as it cools my home. The window units were removed and we all were back in our own bedrooms. My ceiling fan, which had become my best friend in the two weeks of the repair, was off. My ears slowly returned to normal. And I stopped dreaming that I was wrapped in a cocoon of sheep’s wool in the middle of the Amazon rain forest.