I hate air conditioning. I hate the feel of it, I hate the smell of it, I hate the sound of it. I certainly hate the electricity-devouring environmental destructiveness of it.
I know there are many of you out there who suffer terribly in the heat. Mrs. DebtorsPrison is one of them, in fact, which is why we have one of those infernal snarling, grinding, dripping, electric-meter-spinning plastic boxes blocking out half the natural daylight from one of our bedroom windows.
I don't have to be married to you to have enough sweet compassion to understand that maybe you also really suffer from the heat, and really need to have that air conditioning. But that won't stop me from bitching a little bit about it, and also asking you to be thoughtful in your use of it.
Heat rising below the fold...
I confess that I am a heat-lover. I've been on this earth nearly 52 years and traveled to some of it's hottest climes, but I can only remember a handful of times when I felt uncomfortably hot.
Even those times seemed anomalies, something more to do with some acute disturbance of my body chemistry than with the actual temperature. One time was a summer day in lewes, Delaware, when I was in my teens. For some reason, that breezeless day just seemed intolerable, so scorching that even these many decades later I remember the helpless despair I felt trapped in the heat's vice.
Another time was in Acapulco during the summer of 1980. The heat and humidity was absolutely stifling, and I could not walk so much as a block without having to duck into another shop and buy another drink. I was forced to bust my budget and move from my un-airconditioned cheap hotel room to some soulless highrise with AC and a pool (though the pool had been warmed to bathwater temperature by the unrelenting sun.)
Then there was the time in Peru in 1982, when I was forced to abandon my solo hike of the Inca Trail to Macchu Picchu because of a tender knee. Instead, I hiked miles back along the shadeless ridge high above the Urubamba River in the heat of the afternoon, back to Ollantaytambo where I could rest my leg. I remember at one point on that hike wanting to toss my backpack down into the river just to lighten my load, and then, when my water had run out and the heat was most oppressive, considering throwing myself off the ledge. It would have meant certain death, of course, but at least my last moment of consciousness would have been the feel of cold sparkling water sucking me down.
But that's about it. I've happily walked miles of boring suburban blocks of Phoenix, Arizona during summer days, explored Amazon river towns at midday, ventured out into the streets of New Delhi in 115 degree heat, and usually experienced a delicious glow of euphoria doing so. The heat just makes my body blossom.
Oh, there have been times when I've made strategic use of air conditioning. I remember exploring the winding streets of old Seville, Spain during the midday summer heat, and every 45 minutes or so wending my way back to an air conditioned El Corte Ingles department store, where I'd spend ten minutes or so browsing and cooling down. I admit it: I appreciated the access to an air conditioned space.
But maybe that speaks to the way I wish air conditioning was utilized. The first problem, in Seville, was that my impatience wouldn't let me just relax during those hottest hours of the afternoon. Sane Sevillanos were enjoying their two hour lunches or otherwise relaxing out of the sun. I was the crazy one insisting on sightseeing.
There definitely is great sanity in the idea of the midafternoon siesta that many hot-clime countries have adopted. Unfortunately, with globalization and the push for everyone to observe 'normal' business hours, the siesta is becoming a relic. And, of course, air conditioning has played a part in its demise: no longer is there the need to climate-control your schedule, when you can just climate-control your workplace.
But back then, the siesta was still largely in force. The streets were mostly deserted, the museums and many shops closed. But people weren't locked away in their own air conditioned homes and apartments. They were congregated in air conditioned public places like restaurants and department stores. Sometimes just in shady outdoor cafes, with a slight breez and a cool drink.
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It's memories like that that give rise to my most curmudgeonly thoughts about air conditioning. Sometimes I wish private air conditioning was banned. Or maybe available by prescription only, so the infirm, the asthmatic, the elderly could have it. Let air conditioning be largely a public space utility, so that people would be less inclined to sit behind locked doors in their air conditioned rooms, and more inclined to be out and about, socializing, sharing.
No, don't worry. I'm not really campaigning to take away your air conditioners. I don't want that much of a nanny government, and I expect that access to air conditioning would become an even bigger class issue than it is already, with the rich always finding a way to gain access.
Still, when I walk the streets of the residential parts of the city on a hot summer day or warm summer evening, so much of the time the sidewalks are mostly deserted. Instead, the air is filled with the chugging away of air conditioners in dozens of windows, sending their teardrops of condensation to splatter against the sidewalk.
And don't even get me started on the rage I feel while walking through the shopping district downtown, when store after store has their doors flung wide open to the sidewalks, icy blasts of environmentally expensive air swirling uselessly out into the atmosphere.
There is a whole folk art of managing the heat that is increasingly becoming lost as we rely on our energy-devouring technology to keep us cool, window shades and cross ventilation and fans and moisture. Even people sitting outside on a hot summer night, commiserating with one another about the heat, is a sort of social air conditioning, a bonding, a community way to get through this together.
It amuses me to think that there are people sitting in front of their television sets, watching the weather porn on the local newscasts describe what a scorcher the day was...and those people probably didn't actually experience the heat for more than a few moments, moving from air conditioned home to car to work to store. Other times I wonder if not sweating out our toxins enough increases our likelihood of ill health.
Well, right now here in Philly it's 76 degrees,and I'm typing away in my un-air conditioned office without even a fan. Not much breeze coming in the window, but as I said, I love the heat. Mrs. Debtorprison is up in the bedroom, with the air conditioner on. I can hear that infernal grinding floating through my open window. It's set at 74 degrees, not much cooler than the outside temperature, though of course it also drains much of the humidity from the air as well.
Tonight, I hope I can sleep the entire night by her side, because that is where I love to be. But sometimes...I just hate the way it feels on my skin, and I have to with great regret spend part of the night on the futon in my office. Being enveloped in the rich warmth of a summer night feels delicious to me, though it is a poor substitute for the loving arms of my wife.
Anyway, thanks for listening. And really, I'm not totally crazy. I fully recognize that we will enjoy and accomplish a hell of a lot more this coming weekend in Chicago in the fully air-conditioned McCormick Place, than we would slumped in our seats, minds befogged, sweating, fanning ourselves with our nametags. Oh, yes, air conditioning can indeed be a blessing.
But damn it, does it have to be so pervasive?