AC Wars: Green Guilt vs. Modern Living

It’s a hot one! Easily reaching triple digit heat here, and the heat is on in more ways than one. It’s time for our annual air conditioning war to reemerge.

I hate AC — just don’t like it, never have and never will. Although I do use it on occasion (mostly public AC), I try to avoid it. Why? It’s expense and bad rep as a planet ruiner only fuel my fire of prejudice. It’s no coincidence that 2 years ago, I purchased my first AC unit. Yes, at my age! But Van loves it.

When we moved out here almost 4 years ago, there was an old unit hanging out in the garage, so I thought “Well, it’s a back up plan” and just left it there.

The first summer was fairly mild, and we managed to make it through without ever installing the window unit.

But the second summer was a hot one, and Van’s pleas eventually broke down my sweat drenched stubbornness. So we put it up, flipped it on, and a ton of acorns flew out of it. Seems it was being used as storage house by our resident chipmunk family.

Once cleaned up, it was back in service, but after a few hours it froze over and started spewing ice cubes all over the room, so off to the trash heap of global decimation it went, and off to the globe destroying super store we went for a new energy efficient unit. Our first.

Summer number three was mild again, and I was able to hold out.

Last night however was a different story, and after some mild grumbling, Van just got up in the middle of the night and started installing. Result: We both slept like babies.

We do have some minor temperature disagreements, but what coworkers don’t? I always kept a sweater at work all summer long, so this is old territory for me.

But it still begs the question: Is it worth saving the planet if we die of heat stroke doing it?

What do you think?

Posted via email from yellowperilist