I live across the street from my aunt, uncle, and two grown cousins (why they still live at home and pay no rent at 27 and 31, respectively, is a whole different story). And while the exposure on their house is different from mine (mine faces North, they face South) and their house does get more sunlight than mine, they do something I don’t completely understand.
They never open the windows. Ever.
The AC goes on in March, ostensibly to ameliorate the effects of pollen on The Boy’s asthma, and doesn’t go off until the beginning of October. They spend all summer shut up and listening to the roar and bang and burble and clatter of window units, some which have been in place for 10 years or more and are none too quiet.
They never hear the birds chirping or the crickets singing their “Hey, baby!” songs. They don’t feel the breeze or actually hear the thunderstorms.
Granted, DC in the summer can be totally miserable with temperatures in July reaching 85degF by 8am on a regular basis with final highs for the day even warmer. It’s sticky, too, what we natives refer to as “90/90” weather; it’s the kind of weather where you often wonder why you bother to dry off after you get out of the shower in the morning because you know you’re just going to start to sweat the minute you step out of your house even if, like my family, you’ve got your house chilled down to “let’s hang meat in here” temperatures.
Don’t get me wrong, there’s air conditioning in my house, we just use it sparingly, letting it blow just long enough to cool down the space and give the fans we’ve got all over the house a little boost.
There’s just something inorganic about air conditioning, not to mention the fact that it makes it damn hard to hear yourself think let alone hear the TV or the radio.
To me there’s something sublime about not being air conditioned all the time. Even as I type this a creaky old fan sits in the window complaining but still blowing a cool-ish breeze across the room. I can sit here and safely say, with the experience of having sweated out hot days, that today is not so bad. Yeah, it’s a bit sticky, but not as close as it was yesterday, and it’s still sort of cool which means today probably won’t be too horrible.
And what does being constantly temperature controlled do to your ability to relate to your environment? It seems to me, if my family is any yardstick, that it saps you of your ability to sense the small changes: They only have three temperature measures, too hot, too cold, and “this ain’t bad.” Life, and weather, are more complicated than that.
Me, I get the pleasure of being able to stand on the porch with my cup of decaf and feel the changes as the seasons move, knowing that Fall will really begin sometime around the end of August.
I’m not going to give that up because I’m afraid of a little sweat. After all, that’s what cold showers were made for.
I’m glad I’m not the only one who despises air conditioning. I just don’t see the point of wishing for the damned snow to be over only to eradicate every trace of the warm summer sun with stale germy air at meat locker temperatures.
It’s damn near august…I shouldn’t have to carry a pullover ever time I go out to a restaurant, movie or store.
(A.C. seems to have become some perverse sign of status as well. The more upscale the store/hotel/bar/whatever the colder the central air is.)
AC – yes – I’m without it and I must say I wish I weren’t. Still, the times I’ve had it, each spring I regretted the window I had to sacrifice, not to be opened again til the unit came out in the fall.
You referred to, ” the kind of weather where you often wonder why you bother to dry off after you get out of the shower in the morning …” Well – you dry yourself off because otherwise you’d rip your clothes trying to put them on. And also they’d be wet sooner.
Over here, where aircon virtually does not exist in homes and personal cars, I sat in traffic for 2 hours the other day; it was 33C/92F with 87% humidity. The only respite I had from the heat was my open window, through which wafted hot, wet, sticky air and the unwelcome sounds of someone else’s taste in music (it’s one of the hazards of summer).
It’ll be autumn soon, then winter. There’ll be rain and snow and 18 hours of darkness, as opposed to the 18 hours of daylight we get now (not that it gets dark at night at all, really).
So, I’m enjoying summer, while it lasts, and I’m grumbling with everyone else that it’s too damn hot. But I’d rather be bathed in the sweat of the righteous than have aircon.
There are two weeks a year (I think this is called “summer”) when I truly wish I had air conditiong. Otherwise, I’m content to keep the windows open until winter approaches and my better half gets cold. I love listening to the patter of raindrops and leaves rustling in the wind.