It's Probably Cooler in Phoenix, AZ

It's not the heat, it's the humidity!

Yeah, I'm sure you wanted to hear that again.

It's wonderful 90 degrees in this room but I have a fan on me, drying up the sweat as it beads on my forehead. As long as I have this, I can tolerate it. Tolerate is the word. It has nothing to do with my liking it.

Growing up we never had an air conditioner till around 1975. My brother and I had our bedrooms upstairs which became an oven most summers. If really hot, we'd move down stairs and sleep on the couch or carpet. To tell the truth, it wasn't much of a relief as the living room was probably just ten degrees cooler than upstairs. But you take what you can get.

So, my Dad, thinking it was about time, bought an seeming 500 pound Tappan air conditioner from Apex. He managed to hump the unwieldy thing upstairs and shove it into our window. I was amazed at how cool our room had then become. Talk about luxury!

What was interesting was that Dad, who never got an a/c for his bedroom, started taking up residence in our room during the summertime. It was bit disconcerting as that was where I could be in private and in wonderful coolness but not with Dad spread out on my small bed. I had to behave while in my own room dammit.

It's funny how you can remember weather at times. Everyone that was there, can remember the '78 blizzard. I can remember the summer o f '88. I don't know why that sticks in my head but it was nothing but week after goddamn week of 90's and sopping wet dewpoints. It just wouldn't let up it. I'd drive by a temp/billboard thingy near Route 37, on my way to work in western Cranston, and it never read below 90 in the afternoon for what seemed forever.

I can remember waking up as soon as the sun cleared the tree line every morning. Why? Because I'd start sweating in the bed. Every night I'd fall asleep due to literally passing out because I couldn't stay awake anymore around 1 AM. It was too hot to sleep.

It finally did break. We had a huge Canadian cold front move through and I swear it took me a few days just to over come that heat wave that assaulted all of us.

Now the heat is back. I hear people wondering if we'll get any drier air. When you're deep into an ugly event, like this one, it seems it'll never end.

But it will, one day.

And I kiss my Fedder's air conditioner I have in my bedroom every night.