I Love My Trane

Yesterday, a historic annual event occurred at The Compound:  it was the day to flip the switch on the central air conditioning. 

April started out unusually warm - it felt like we went right from winter into summer.  Then the middle of the month the spring rains came and brought winter temperatures again.  But it started to warm up last week, and by this weekend it was downright hot.  With the warm temperatures came the days that I dread - waiting out the 'rents to see who would be the first to turn on the air conditioning. 

I'm warm-blooded by nature; I get it from my Grandma.  She and Grandpa had a window unit in their bedroom at home, and in the summer, I could go in there to play and take naps in the afternoons. If it was really hot, I would seek refuge in their back bedroom, but otherwise, I would be outside.  I really didn't mind the summer heat until nighttime.  We had an attic fan, and in the evenings, we'd all stick a shoe or book in the door way of the rooms and close the doors, leaving a space for the air to flow through.  We got buy, but it was just annoying having to listen to the traffic outside.  That's the part that I hate the most about weeks leading up to the flipping-of-the-switch. 

We didn't get central air in the house until I was 17 years old.  I remember sitting back in my bedroom, which faces west and gets all of the afternoon sun, trying to type a term paper for a class at school.  It never occurred to me to take the typewriter back to Grandma's room; I'd heard that all good writers suffer for the cause, so I guess I was in martyr mode or something.  Anyhoo, a few days after that near-suffication in my bedroom, my parents told me and Grandma that we were getting central air installed.  Grandma and I thought we'd died and gone to heaven. 

I had an ally in Grandma while she was there - because of Grandma's congestive heart failure, Mom or Dad would flip the switch and turn on the a/c at the first sign of warm temperatures. But when she went to the nursing home, I was on my own.  I know you might think I'm being hardcore about that, but that's the way it was.  As Mom and Dad got older, the more they started to enjoy the nice cool air in the house.  But it still was a waitinggame to see when they would flip the switch.  I would make subtle hints in the morning before I left for work, like "They said there's a chance of rain today.  I'll shut my windows just in case", letting them know my room was locked and loaded for the flip of the switch.  Yesterday, I did the same thing.  It must have worked - when I came home, the tell-tale signs were all around me: the back door was closed, the kitchen window was closed, and the best sign of all, I could hear the gentle hum of the air conditioner compressor beside the house.