Dante’s Inferno, Third Circle: Air Conditioning
It’s that time of year, when the sun hits the earth more directly because we’re tilted closer to its ball of fire, giving us summer. For most of humanity’s history this has meant when it’s the warmest, we sweat, we are comfortable in just our bare skins. But because of a horrible monstrosity of an invention, it means the time of the year I freeze. Air conditioning! You brutal, cruel, unnatural beast! You are responsible for your part in global warming, for icey fingers that can’t type in the office, bad postures at cafes and trains because I’m always slouched in a self-embracing curl to warm myself in the arctic temperatures your warm-aphobic inventors instilled in you. Wear sweaters, you say? They don’t work. That’s how evil the chill of air conditioning is. It seeps through fabric, numbs the bones. And what’s the point of having summer if I have to dress like an eskimo all year long? So down to the third circle of Dante’s Inferno you go, air conditioning, with the gluttons in freezing rain, slush, and snow. May the flames you endure there finally restore our summers.
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Word of warning to all of you sinners. In preparation for the after-life stop shopping for asbestos garments and focus on L.L.Bean’s end of winter sales. I think of the AC as one of those inexplicable mysteries of american life. We can send people to the moon, install a video camera into the tip of a writing pen and precision bomb a bumble bee on another continent but we can’t…
make a copy machine that doesn’t break every 10 minutes
find a way to adjust heat in an apartment building so it doesn’t put us in a coma
find a way to adjust Air Conditioning so it doesn’t treat everyone as they were Walt Disney.
The good news is that Dr. Oz says that our bodies handle cold better that hot although that doesn’t explain why my joins hurt every time I spend more that 15 minutes on the subway during summer AC frienzy.
funny, JPLogan! I truly thought all males reading this would disagree that this was a problem.
Hear, hear Nova! There is absolutely no reason for air conditioning because of your point exactly- the inability to provide a comfortable
temperature. I do not have central air nor do I even use a window unit anymore. Window AC is actually tolerable because it cools a 2 foot area.
The first thing I do when I enter a hotel room is turn it off completely. I hate it. Try having friends in FL who have never lived outside of the state, detest the cold but literally have their AC on full blast at all times. WHY? Although I am a grateful house guest, is it rude that I close the vents? It actually makes me mad at them!!! I don’t want to be cold when it is 90 degrees out.
Then there are the office mates that have hot flashes so put fans on full blast so I am forced to wear that damn sweater and risk an ear infection and sore throat. Inconsiderate.