How I Survived the Summer Without Committing a Felony

I've come to believe there are two kinds of people in this world.  People who think air conditioning is a luxury and those whose air conditioner dies during a 100-degree New York City heat wave.

The first group still has hope.

The second group starts exploring property in Antarctica.

My air conditioner and I had enjoyed a wonderful fifteen-year relationship.

Fifteen years.

That's longer than some Hollywood marriages.

It never complained.

Never called in sick.

Never asked for overtime.

Every summer it faithfully stood between me and spontaneous human combustion.

Then one afternoon, with temperatures pushing 100 degrees, it apparently looked outside and thought, “You know what? I’m retiring!”

Not next month. Not next week.

Immediately.

Apparently, HVAC units don't believe in giving two weeks' notice.

Naturally, I entered Stage One of Air Conditioner Grief.

Denial.

"Oh, it's fine."

"It's just overheating."

"It's taking a little power nap."

"It'll be back."

Every ten minutes I'd push the ON button.

Nothing.

Then, my heart nearly stopped.

"Click."  Silence.

My air conditioner had become the automotive equivalent of a teenager pretending to clean his room whenever Mom walked by.

Every time it made the slightest sound, I'd celebrate as if NASA had re-established contact with Voyager.

"It's alive!"

Five seconds later, "Nope."

By hour three, I was back to sweet-talking to my air-conditioner!

"Come on, buddy."

"We've been through a lot together."

"I still believe in you."

I came to believe that my refrigerator was beginning to feel uncomfortable watching this relationship.

Eventually, reality set in! My AC unit was dead, and I had to accept it!

After fifteen years of loyal service, it had crossed over into the Great HVAC Graveyard in the Sky.

So I walked to the nearest big-box store.

It was a 30-minute walk, because apparently the universe had decided I wasn't suffering quite enough.

When I arrived, the air conditioner aisle looked like a grocery store the day before a blizzard.

Empty.

Not mostly empty.

Archaeologically empty.

If Indiana Jones had discovered the aisle, he'd have concluded an ancient civilization once worshipped window units.

One lonely price tag remained.

It seemed to be laughing.

A store employee looked at me with genuine sympathy.

"We're sold out."

"When are more coming?"

"We're hoping next week."

Hope?

Hope doesn't lower room temperature.

Hope is not measured in BTUs.

Hope doesn't come with a remote control.

I returned home determined to "tough it out."

Those four words have probably appeared in the final chapter of many bad decisions.

That evening I became MacGyver with heat exhaustion.

First, I used ice packs. I wrapped one inside a towel and placed it on my forehead.

For fifteen glorious minutes I experienced civilization.

Then I fell asleep.

Several hours later I woke up in a puddle.

Unfortunately, the ice had transformed into warm water.

Instead of cooling me, I'd accidentally slow-cooked my own head.

I wasn't sleeping anymore.

I was poaching.

Next, I placed two fans facing each other.

Surely science would create some magical cooling vortex.

Instead, I succeeded in circulating hot air with remarkable efficiency.

Congratulations, Anthony.

You've invented convection.  By Day Two I was leaking.

My forehead was immersed in sweat even as I sat perfectly still.

I wasn't walking across my apartment.

I was swimming through it.

My shirt had become less of a garment and more of a wetland ecosystem.

I began measuring time not in hours but by the number of showers I took per day.  Then a friend called.

"You should get an air cooler."

"It uses ice water."

Ice?

Water?

Cold?

Those were my three favorite words.

I bought one immediately.

Filled it with ice water.

Turned it on.

For approximately forty-five magnificent seconds, I believed I had personally solved climate change.

Then the apartment became very humid.

Not Florida humid.

Not Louisiana humid.

Amazon Rainforest during monsoon season humid.

At one point, I half expected to hear the Discovery Channel reporting from behind my sofa, narrating the exotic wildlife developing in my living room.

Apparently, these machines are wonderful when you already have air conditioning.

That's like saying ketchup works great when it's served with a steak.

By itself?

Not so much.

By Day Three, my brain had entered survival mode.

I started questioning every decision I'd ever made.

Had I offended Mother Nature?

Forgotten someone's birthday?

Returned a library book late in 1982?

Taken the last doughnut at our last cookout?

Whatever crime I'd committed apparently carried a sentence of "No Air Conditioning During Triple Digits."

I began bargaining with the universe.

"I'll floss every day."

"I'll eat more vegetables."

Nothing.

The universe remained unimpressed.  Then my neighbor casually suggested, "Why don't you call around?"

Of course!

For the next two hours, I phoned every big-box store within what felt like a five-state radius.

Finally...

One employee uttered the greatest sentence I'd heard all week.

"We have exactly one left."

One.

It was an hour away via Cab or Uber!

And probably divine intervention.

At that point I'd have traveled to the moon if NASA promised air conditioning.  When I finally reached the store...

There it was, the last unit.

Beautiful.

Magnificent.

It practically had a halo.

If angels shop at big-box stores, this is what they push through checkout.

I carefully placed it into my shopping cart.

Mission accomplished.

Unfortunately, after my one-hour commute, my bladder had filed an official complaint.

I asked a nearby woman,

"Would you mind watching my cart for just three minutes?"

She smiled.

"No problem."

Famous last words! Last.

Three minutes later I returned.

No air conditioner.

The woman looked as though she'd accidentally backed over my puppy.

"A man took it."

Excuse me?

"He said he'd already picked it."

Apparently, my air conditioner had been kidnapped.

She explained that the man claimed he'd left it there ten minutes earlier after telling an employee he was retrieving his wallet from his car.

Very convenient.

She admitted she didn't know either of us.

She also wasn't interested in becoming Judge Judy over a household appliance.

Fair enough.

She pointed toward the checkout lanes.

"If you hurry, you may see him and retrieve your unit!

Luckily, I caught him.

We argued.

He repeated the wallet story.

I repeated the words,

"No, you didn't."

Several dozen times.

Finally, security and the store manager intervened.

She listened patiently.

Then she did something brilliant.

She announced over the loudspeaker:

"If any employee spoke with a customer about leaving an air conditioner while retrieving a wallet, please come to the front."

We waited.

Nothing.

The man became increasingly agitated.

"Maybe the employee went home!"

The manager calmly replied,

"Then we'll call them."

I almost applauded.

She tracked down every employee who had clocked out in the past hour.

Every single one!

Forty-five minutes later, no one confirmed his story.

The manager looked at me.

"You may purchase the air conditioner."

At that moment, she wasn't a store manager.

She was Supreme Court Justice of the United States of Air Conditioning. 

Victory. Or so I thought.

Have you ever carried a large window air conditioner from the store into a Cab and then into an apartment?

Neither had I.

My back gave out after I got off my Uber ride carrying this heavy unit!

By the time I got home, I was walking like a ninety-year-old cowboy who'd just lost a wrestling match to a refrigerator.

Still, I somehow managed to install the unit in my apartment and pressed the ON button!

Cold air.

Glorious.

Beautiful.

Magnificent.

I stood directly in front of it for thirty minutes and whispered, "I'll never take you for granted."

If anyone had proposed marriage at that exact moment, I probably would have accepted, provided they promised central air.

I spent the next three days flat on my back recovering from the injury I suffered carrying the very machine that saved my life.

The heat was finally gone.

Now I couldn't move.

It was clear to me that the universe had an excellent sense of humor.

One week I was praying for cold air.

The next week I was praying for ibuprofen.

Now, when I hear my new air conditioner kick on. It's the most beautiful sound in the world.

It is unlike listening to Beethoven or even Mozart.

I hear a compressor starting up.

And if my new unit ever makes so much as a suspicious cough, I will be sure to replace it before it starts updating its résumé.