Hot Fun in the Summertime

Last night, I finally gave in and put the air conditioner in one of the living room windows.

It's not so much that I wanted to avoid driving my electric bill into orbit, though that certainly was part of it, and it's not like we haven't had days where I could have used the gentle hum and the cooling breeze from behind my increasingly decrepit couch, because we certainly have. It's not even that the air conditioner is a serious, literal pain in the back to jam into the window. (It's a small unit--minds out of the gutter, people--but it doesn't quite fit the window closest to the wall socket, so it's a struggle to get it up and in--what did I just say about your minds and the gutter?)

No, my reason for not installing the air conditioner sooner was more basic--we hadn't had any sustained heatwave, so I didn't need to. A hot afternoon here, a humid night there...those can be managed with a fan in the bedroom window and one in the doorway, and the living room has a ceiling fan to cool me down while I watch "The Next Food Network Star."

Winter tarried too long at the fair, and spring was a fleeting thing. Summer took a while to throw its damp, slightly smelly blanket over the city, and for a time I was determined not to let summer win, not to give in to the cool breezes to be had from the corner window. But now, our local weather forecasters have given the heavy word: We're to have a string of sizzle stretching into the coming weekend.

I could resist no more. I finally gave in and put the air conditioner where air conditioners go.

You win, summer. This time.