Monday Morning Grievance: Losing My Cool

🎶 Ooh, ooh, ooh,
I feel my temperature rising
Help me, I’m flaming
I must be a hundred and nine
Burning, burning, burning
And nothing can cool me
I just might turn to smoke
But I feel fine 🎶

It’s Monday and I haven’t had my coffee.

I didn’t grow up with air conditioning; instead, we had ceiling and box fans. But, that was Pennsylvania and I now live in North Carolina, where nearly everyone has some kind of AC, even if it’s only window units. It gets hot here; as I’m writing this the temperature is inching inexorably towards 100+ F. The good news is that next week the temperatures will be more seasonal, meaning closer to 90F.

So, imagine my consternation when my unit started making an odd sound very early on Saturday, July 3. Yes, the date is important. By 8:00, it was clear that the unit wasn’t keeping up with the temperature. Now, given that the mercury rises so high, everyone knows that AC units fight a losing battle – one merely hopes for tolerable indoor temperatures. However, when the outside temp is only 80F and the inside temp is 74F, there’s a problem.

My wonderful father-in-law came over and took a look; he thought our freon might need charging but also suggested I call an uncle who had more experience with ac units and electrical stuff in general. When we went to turn the unit back on, the fan wouldn’t start. We had to push it with a stick.

I couldn’t get hold of my uncle; he was working til noon. I started looking for a serviceman. Oh wait, it’s the weekend, which means it’s considered an “emergency call”. And it’s the weekend of July 4, meaning if I call a company really out to make a buck, they’ll charge me time and a half of the emergency call fee. Not happening.

Thankfully, my uncle made time in his busy day to come over and look at the unit that evening. We walked out and felt heat coming off the unit – which shouldn’t be happening. Turns out that dad and I started the fan in the wrong direction. He looked it over for a few minutes and declared:

You’ve got a bad capacitor. I’ve got a guy. I’ll have one for you tomorrow and we’ll get this fixed.

The next afternoon he had it fixed in about ten minutes. It would have been less if we hadn’t been talking to each other. On top of that, I found out my in-laws decided to pay for the part.

I have the best family 🙂