It’s Hot
I wake up at 7:00am to the sound of a loud fire alarm. It must be national test-your-fire-alarm-day. I remember those from middle school. I try to go to sleep, but it’s no use.
I flop out of bed, head to the kitchen and make some breakfast. After breakfast I go back into my room and I hear a wheezing noise. After a bit of investigation I realize that it’s the intake for the air conditioner that’s making the racket. I flip the air conditioner on and off - the only repair move I can think of. It doesn’t work.
When I get back to work it’s 85 degrees in the apartment according to the thermostat. It feels hotter - I’m used to a breezy 73. After a day or two I realize that it’s not going to fix itself and I call the repair man. It takes him a few days to fix it.
During the 6 days or so that I had no air conditioner, I gradually adjusted to the heat. By the end I actually enjoyed it. When the repair was finally completed, I didn’t bother turning the air conditioner back on.
Let’s think about this for a second - why the hell is 72 degrees the standard temperature that we like so much? There are people in Africa with no air conditioning who live in 100 degree heat that don’t complain about it. I spend thousands of dollars a year adapting the environment to me. Why not just adjust to the environment and save all that money?
So far it’s been a month or so, and I haven’t used the air conditioning or heater at all (twice someone else used it…) and everything’s been fine. It’s going to start getting colder, so we’ll see how long I last!
(1 votes, average: 2 out of 5)
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November 14th, 2006 at 2:35 pm
Same thing goes for showers. Who declared that showers should be performed with hot water? On a side note.. what the hell is this crap about catching cold from not wearing a coat outside in the winter. Last time I checked, colds and other illnesses come from germs, not a certain air temperature.
Perhaps we should start a movement to change some of the widely accepted practices in society, that seem to be followed simply because “that’s just what you do”. I volunteer to be the Secretary of Defense of our new world.
November 15th, 2006 at 12:57 pm
Yeah Hu, you go ahead and enjoy your freeing cold shower first thing in the morning. You show the world how unique you can be! I just feel sorry for your sensitive man-parts.
November 15th, 2006 at 1:04 pm
wow hu. CLEVER. you SHOW them! once you stop wearing a coat and taking ice cold showers THE WORLD WILL FOLLOW!
i suggest world domination as a follow up.
in a real comment on the blog, i rarely use A/C and if i lived somewhere with dry heat, the chances of me ever using it would slim to none.
November 15th, 2006 at 3:12 pm
For a long time I have had a theory about temperature and productivity of a given civilization. It is definitely true that people living in 100 degree African heat are fully accustomed to it and probably don’t spend their days dreaming of a 15000 BTU air conditioner. However I suspect that this prevalent heat may be a considerable reason why many regions lying within 30 degrees of the equator are considered to be 2nd or 3rd world. In addition to Africa take a look at the Far East, Central America, South America, and the Middle East which lie almost entirely within this sector. These regions lag the world in almost every measure of life expectancy and economic indicators. It was not until the wide spread advent of air conditioning that countries like Saudi Arabia and India began to share in the success previously enjoyed by cooler areas of the world.
January 31st, 2007 at 5:50 am
Technology comes at a price. A few shamanistic Native American cultures believed that the price of technology was to high to pay. If a warrior had a heater that means he did’nt have to adjust to the cold. He was weakened. Him being cold would force him to become smarter, to adapt better, to be more resourceful. He may start exercising and thus becoming stronger, he may learn how to start a fire with natural flint and sticks, he may kill a wild deer and cook the meat to warm his bones or climb into the chest cavity for warmth.
I used to do the same thing at my house back in LA but now that Im living with other people for college the temp is always set and I feel weak