Burn, Baby, Burn!

It's about 1:30 am on Thursday and I am grouchy.


Very, very grouchy.


I'm lying on the floor of my front room, with the lights off, house alarm turned off and front door opened. I'm dying a slow, miserable death.


My air-conditioning is broken.


It's 87 degrees in the house.


And I'm grouchy.


I need to take ANOTHER shower (3rd in less than 24 hours) because I can feel the sweat trickle down the small of my back. Earlier in the day when the pick-up driver from a local charity came to take my donations I noticed that while they were two very hard working guys, it was going to take them forever to carry the things out the downstairs sliding door, through the gate and up the steep climb of my front yard. So I decided to not be a lazy bystander and help them out.


Did I mention it was 93 degrees today?


On the first day of Fall?


I got hot and sweaty from doing something more than sitting still and was instantly grouchy.


*******
I remember growing up in Central California where it was typical to have the temperature climb above 100 degrees during the summer months. We didn't have air-conditioning in our home, but I don't remember being grouchy. Why, we even played outside during the peak heat of the day. Each day would start off the same way. My mom would make sure all of the windows were opened and all of the blinds were shut tight. Around 10am she would holler for us to "close up" the house. All of the windows were shut tight for the rest of the day and it remained dark in the house. I know I wasn't always mindful or grateful my mom had this ritual, but it was what kept our house from frying our brains silly. The daytime never seemed too bad, even if the sidewalks were scorching and mom kept shooing us outside to play. It wasn't until night came that the heat would start to drive me completely out of my mind.

Even though the Delta brought a refreshing breeze to our parched Valley each evening, it wouldn't make a difference in my second story bedroom where the heat had been accumulating during the day. It wouldn't get cool in my room until around 2 am after several hours of stifling heat. The bright spot was that each of the 2 bedrooms where the girls slept had ceiling fans, my brother had a fan on a stand. There was, however, the problem of my father prohibiting their use during sleeping hours. The electricity would cost too much. Sometimes we would break the rules and turn the fans back on once he had gone to sleep --- only to find that in the dark hours of early morning my mom had come upstairs and turned off the fans. I'm not sure if she was angry or if she didn't want us to get caught.

We tried a variety of ridiculous tricks to keep cool during those years, but one stands out above them all as completely crazy. Several times I would take the sheets from my bed, sneak them to the bathroom and soak them in the sink with cold water. I would then take my dripping sheets back to my bed, put one underneath and the other on top of me. I can't even begin to imagine how I must have ruined my mattress! Sorry mom & dad! I don't know if my sister will remember the time we were sleeping with wet towels on our heads and she proceeded to say something that pushed a button. I took my towel, wound it as tightly as possible and then snapped her in the eye from across the room.


I got in trouble for that one.


So did my sister.


My dad has always offered equal opportunity punishments.


Despite his explanation that our beds were located upstairs, I could never wrap my brain around why it wasn't possible for him to let us sleep downstairs where it was at least 10 degrees cooler. My mom would say everything would be alright because soon the "Delta Breeze" (yes, capitals) would kick in and we would have respite until the next day. Ohhhhh how I longed to sleep downstairs every once in a while. Sometimes after my parents headed to bed, one or two of us would head downstairs to sleep on the floor of the front room only to be wakened by a grumpy father relegating us to our real beds at some unheard of hour of 3 or 4 am.

Years later after 7 (I think) of us 8 kids had already moved out and on, my father installed a barely-below-industrial-strength air-conditioning unit. I've heard it when it starts up -- it sounds like a Boeing 757 is sitting next to the house. I moves the air through my parents' home effortlessly and brings the temperature down almost instantly.

But my mom rarely turns it on --- she likes the Delta Breeze.


What I wouldn't give for one right now.


Oh, and dad? I'm gonna sleep in my front room ---- so there!