Muy Caliente!

It’s when the cat starts to mope about that I start to feel badly. She’s been wandering around the house, draping herself meltingly over the edges of things like she’s a clock in a Dali painting, and occasionally giving out a resigned, “Mew.” She looks at me with imploring eyes when I pass on my way to the kitchen to stick my head in the freezer for a few blessed, chilly seconds, as if to say: “IT’S HOT IN HERE. AND I’M FLUFFY. AND IT’S HOT.”

Because she is. And it is.

The air conditioner is broken again.

The first time I found that my air conditioner had essentially peed all over my wall, I was shocked and horrified. Thoughts of black mold – this is how it starts, oh yes it is, with damp carpeting and walls – scampered gaily through my paranoid brain. I had a vision of my house as a biohazard, with men in protective suits coming to take everything away, a la ET.

This, of course, did not happen. Instead, I mopped up the water and maintenance came and did some maintenance-y things to the air conditioner and assured me that it would be fine.

It was fine for about a week.

And then it was very much NOT fine. Once again, my air conditioner leaked water all down the wall. Into the carpet. Onto the entertainment center. Water, water, everywhere. I shut it off. My apartment immediately skyrocketed to a temperature that could only be described as stifling.

Whatever, I thought. I don’t NEED an air conditioner. I grew up in MAINE. With no air conditioner at all. AND BEARS. I’m totally fine. I’ll get some fans and it will be fine!

And it was fine.

Well, mostly.

Okay, it sucked.  It was hot. I mean, probably not as hot as, say, the surface of the sun, but hot. The temperature at two o’clock was 100 degrees on the deck, and 86 degrees in my house. For the record, this is when you want your house – and your home office -- to be EIGHTY SIX degrees: NEVER.

But we got through it. The cat hid on top of the cupboards, in a dark corner. I sweated grimly.

The maintenance guy came back and drilled a hole in the a/c. To help it to drain on the outside. “That’ll do her,” he said.

After he left, I looked at the air conditioner.

It looked at me.

“You know I don’t trust you,” I said to it, and walked away.  I don’t need the a/c, I reasoned. I’ll just use the fan on it. There’s no water involved with the fan. It’s FINE.

It is, of course, fine to use just the fan.

I should probably mention here that I have a full western exposure on my delightful corner unit. I get full sun – unrelenting, baking, crisping sun – all afternoon. In the winter, this is cause for joy, celebration, and naps where I stretch out full length on the carpet and bask in the sunshine.

In the summer, it generally means that I don’t ever have to turn the lights on in my house in the afternoon or evening because it’s bright like Vegas.

Oh, and it means my place is an oven.

So I relented in my distrust of the a/c unit. Mostly because it’s one thing for me to be hot, tired, and cranky, but another thing entirely for my ridiculously spoiled pet to be sad about it. I’ll just turn it on for a couple of hours in the afternoon, I decided. It’ll be okay.

People.

IT WAS NOT OKAY.

Once again, my incredibly incontinent air conditioner has let go allllll down the inside wall.

And now? NOW I AM ANGRY.

And sweaty.

And suspicious.

They’re coming to fix it again. But this air conditioner has ISSUES. I think we’ve moved past mere tinkering. I think I need an appliance whisperer. If anyone can tell me where to find one, I’d really appreciate it. But he’s going to need to bring a fan.

It’s a little steamy in here.