Blabber
Air Conditioned Words
Thinking about cave living
Imagine what it must be like living through a brutal heat wave before air conditioning was invented. Dig deep into your genetic memory. Everyone has experienced this in one life or another. And we’ve had many ancestors who have endured debilitating heat. In the overall scheme of things air conditioning is still a relatively new invention.
Yet our children and their children are growing up in a world where indoor air conditioning is a given. Why be outdoors in sweltering heat when you can be inside. Just crank up the A/C.
Right now I am thoroughly grateful for my air conditioner. But I am also a bit annoyed.
Normally at seven-thirty in the morning I am at my laptop with the windows in my office opened, as the birds perform their morning show. A gentle, cool morning breeze washing over me.
But we are in the midst of a little heat wave. The temperature has been over 100 degrees (Fahrenheit) several times in the last week. We practically went from winter straight to summer. Maybe that’s just me.
So this morning at seven-thirty I’m at my laptop but the windows are closed and the air conditioner is running. (At seven-thirty!)
I can’t hear the birds! I can’t hear the birds!
It was not exactly an existential crisis but it certainly is an annoyance. I didn’t realize how much I count on those birds. Or windows.
Sometimes I fantasize about living in a cliff dwelling somewhere in the mystical land of Mayra. I think it would be a positively enlightening experience. Of course caves have no air conditioning and they only have one window. (I prefer to have windows facing in all directions. Another fantasy is living in a glass dome.)
When I was in Cub Scouts numerous decades ago my troop went on a desert hike up to an old abandoned gold mine. It was a very hot day. As I entered the mine and began walking through it I remember noticing how much cooler the mine was than the desert outside. It was almost like the mine had air conditioning.
Do you see what this heat wave is doing to me? No birds. The incessant drone of the A/C. Windows shut tight. And all I can seem to write about is air conditioning!
I think I’ll go outside and walk barefoot on the grass. That always helps.
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