Hot As Hell: A.K.A Damned Global Warming

I know, I know, I know...I've been bitching, pretty much non-stop about how cold and rainy and icky it's been.  And then today?  85 FLIPPIN' DEGREES...out of NOWHERE!!  I'm not complaining but...ok, I'm not now, but I was earlier today.  Why?  Because it's really too early to convince my husband that we should turn on the A.C.  I mean, it's only April.  And a few days ago I was all for cranking up the heat.  Damn Global Warming.  Damn you people who don't recycle and who drive around in your big SUV's and leave the water running when you brush your teeth!  (Ok, truth-be-told, I'd probably be driving around in one of those big SUV's too, if I could afford the gas...)  But seriously, I'm all for trying to do our part to save the planet and slow down the destruction.  And I did enjoy the past two days of warm weather...just not inside my house.  You see, I've become an air-conditioning junkie.  

I wasn't always this way.  Hell, I grew up in the same town I'm in now...(feel sorry for me...please) and we had absolutely no air conditioning in my house until I was around 15.  I can remember the summers well...going to bed with the window fan on, blowing hot air around the room, while I lay in my 'shortie pajama's' (remember those?) on top of my sheets, sweating like crazy.  I'd flip my pillow around and wallow in the thirty seconds of cool, non-sweaty cottonness of it before it would heat up just like the other side.  And I distinctly remember waking up in the middle of the night because I had rolled onto my side, only to find my legs sandwiched together and pooled in sweat.

And what about the car?!  My dad didn't buy cars that had air-conditioning until well after I had moved out.  (Nor a dishwasher, for that matter.)  I can remember driving along with the windows down, my naturally curly hair (from hell, especially during the Farrah Fawcett days) blowing and curling in the hot, humid wind.  When we'd stop somewhere, I'd look like a blonde version of Carrot Top. 

And then, sometime in my mid-teens, we actually got a couple of window AIR CONDITIONERS.  One for the dining room.  And one for my parents room.  Yeah.  The only time I actually benefited from the air conditioners was when I came down with a major case of strep throat on top of head-to-toe poison ivy (which was NOT contracted from being in the woods while making out with someone at the park during the fourth of July festivities...ahem...) at which time, since it was so UNGODLY hot, and I was so miserable that I was prescribed some major Codeine, my parents actually set up a temporary mattress for me in the air conditioned dining room.However, I was so doped up at the time that I wasn't actually able to enjoy my stint in the coolness of it all...

But then, sometime after my growing up and moving out, I experienced summer-long air conditioning...

Which eventually, when my husband and I put an addition onto the house a couple of years ago, resulted in us getting central air...need I say more?

Once you've had central air, well, why be hot?  Ever.

Which is why, today, being a freak of a hot day, I was more than uncomfortable.  But I did not even attempt to brooch the subject of turning on the A.C.  Because even for me, it's too early. 

But for my spoiled children?  Who've never experienced the window fans, or lack of, or the hot air blowing into the car, immediately upon walking into the house after school exclaimed:

"It's sooooo hot in here!!!!  Why isn't the air conditioning on???!!"

And my reply was, "Because it's hot-as-hell and it's only April.  And it costs a lot to run the A.C.  And wasn't yesterday 'Earth Day'?  And didn't you guys watch 'An Inconvenient Truth' at school and participate in the Global Warming Teach-In last Friday?  

To which they replied, "Yeah, so why don't you have the AC on?

They'll get it eventually, maybe not until they're the ones paying the bills...but yeah, they'll get it eventually.  Until then, we're all sleeping with our fans in the windows tonight, just for old times' sake.