You Don’t Need 98 reasons To Defenestrate People

One of the first things people told me about Texas was to be prepared for the Summer.

“You Californians don’t know real heat, Texas is different.”

I nodded my head and smiled because I knew they didn’t know I grew up in the San Fernando Valley where it wasn’t uncommon for it be in triple digits during the summer nor was it unusual to be beach weather during the rest of the year.

When I talk about being a seventies kid and playing on steel playground equipment I never forget to mention how hot the equipment was.

Because there were plenty of days when you gritted your teeth and went down the slide to prove you were as tough as the next kid.

So I never worried about the Texas heat because it felt like home to me.

Bring Your Own Brick & Towel

It wasn’t quite 98 degrees today but the thermostat outside said it was about 91.

Most of the time I wouldn’t think twice about that but today was different because the air conditioning in my place went on strike last week.

We called the repairman and found out they couldn’t get to us until Monday morning and we discovered the joy of living in a house that was almost as hot inside as it was outside.

When my daughter asked me to do something about it I told her we were going to open our own spa.

“Our house is now a sauna but our clients will be required to bring their own brick and towel.”

She shook her head and told me she didn’t understand so I tried a different approach.

“Honey, all we need to do is find some Finnish folk who are on vacation. They love saunas.”

She scrunched her face and gave me a look that at almost 11 is cute to me but usually saved for when she is unhappy with her brother.

I decided not to try and explain what I meant and why because she didn’t appreciate my first attempt at humor and was unlikely to give the second go a better response.

So I told her not to worry about it because the repairman was going to be here by 8:30 on Monday morning.

That made her smile and me too because even though I like the heat it doesn’t lend itself to a good night’s rest.

You Don’t Need 98 reasons To Defenestrate People

The repairman didn’t show first thing in the morning as promised but close enough for me not to be particularly concerned.

Since it was still morning and we hadn’t yet reached the heat of the day I  figured all would work out just fine.

I was wrong.

Wrong because the damn thing worked perfectly for the repairman. I could tell from the questions he asked and the comments he made he thought the problem was user error.

Truth is I wondered a bit about it too and tried to figure out if maybe I had made a mistake.

But the thing is I couldn’t figure out how or what.

I have been using this thermostat for more than a year now and the unit has done what was supposed to do.

After the repair guy left I shrugged my shoulders and didn’t think about it again until somewhere around 2 I noticed it was getting hot.

So I turned on the air conditioning and it worked just fine until the early evening came.

That was when I discovered it was blowing hot and not cold air.

And now at almost 11 it is again more than 80 inside and the fans just aren’t cutting it which I suppose is why defenestration sounds so attractive.

Apps Can’t Do Everything

I see this experience as another reminder about why I talk to my kids about developing a list of things they can do without relying on technology.

For example I want them to know how to read a paper map and not rely upon the GPS and I want them to know how to do basic match without the use of a calculator.

But I also want them to remember that YouTube can be used as a giant search engine and there are people on there who can teach you how to do a million different things.

Repairs of appliances, household devices and all sorts of electrical and plumbing advice can be found there too.

If you have some basic skills and are relatively handy you can use YouTube to help figure out how to do some of these things yourselves.

I like that and it is not unusual to find me tinkering away at something while watching a video.

Mind you I am very conscious of my skill level and understanding so there are some tasks that I save for the professionals.

And tomorrow I will call the professional that came out to visit today and ask him to come back because even though I like to kid around about living inside a sauna it is not part of a life long dream.

That item on the old bucket list is officially crossed off.