Air Conditioners for Yankees 101

Air Conditioners for Yankees 101

For some reason I have been put in charge of the air conditioner. What would have been really cool though (pun) is if someone in this house had told me that. I had no idea until the other day.

Bill and Brother came home from work first. I was in the kitchen doing kitchen things while Bill went into his room to talk on the phone and Brother settled onto the loveseat for a nap.

I resisted the urge to take his picture and post it on the internet. I tried to justify doing it as a research kind of thing. You know, why would a 6 foot tall man try to sleep on a 5 foot long loveseat when there is a 6 foot couch right next to it? It would be better if I took his picture for the visual, right?

But I promised to stop doing it and I only have to keep the promise a few more times before I can claim I forgot about it.

Little brother-big sister rules. Look in the handbook, it’s there.

So a little while later, Del came in the door from work. “Holy shit, why is it so hot in here?”

Then Bill came out of his room and said “What the hell? Is the freaking house on fire or something?”

Shortly after that Brother woke up from his nap. “Why the hell did a nap cause me to sweat?”

This is a guy’s way of telling you to do something about their comfort.

I know, I think it’s bullshit too.

When I am hot I do one of two things. I either jump in the pool or I adjust the air conditioner.

When they are hot, they stand around questioning me. What the hell is that? It would be impossible for me to take the thermostat off the wall and hide it so they all know where it is. The thing is about chin level with me so they can all reach it so it’s not a location problem.

I continued to do my kitchen things but watched and listened to the three of them to see what they would come up with to solve their problem.

They did nothing. I didn’t realize it until then but none of them have ever touched the thermostat.

Wow, talk about having all the power. Piss me off and I’ll turn the sucker off and cook your ass. Ha-ha.

I was just about to grant the three of them permission to touch the thermostat when the Yankee in me kicked in.

I really think I over thought it before I said it and Brother busted me on it.

Little brother- big sister rules. Again, it’s in the handbook.

“You guys can turn the air conditioner….”

That’s it. That’s all I could say. After that my mouth dropped open and something that sounded like a dial tone came out of it.

“ahhhhhhh…….”

Which way? Turn it up? Turn it down? It’s a digital thing, there really was no turning involved whatsoever.

“You don’t know, do you?” Brother asked.

“I don’t.” I said and blinked a kind of Morse code for help at him.

I never had central air conditioning before in my entire life. The only thermostat I’ve ever dealt with was a dial on the wall for heat. If you were cold, you turn it up. If you were hot, you turned it down. Apparently to a Yankee, turning things to the right is the equivalent to going up.

Like I said, this thing was digital. It has up and down buttons on it. If you turn it up and use the up button- which is what my gut told me I wanted to say- you’d only make it hotter.

But ‘turn it up’ sounds like more, right?

See, I over thought it.

Are you over thinking it too? (Please say yes and make me feel better, okay?)

According to Brother the Southerner, if you ‘turn it up’ you are making it cooler.

But you have to use the down button to do that.

Ho-okay.

The south makes no sense some days. If there were left and right buttons, we wouldn’t have run into this problem.

LYMI!