My Sabbath week got off to a fantastic start.
You see that thermostat? It’s not lying.
On Friday, after I’d logged the last writing hour I would log for an entire week (I practice a week-long Sabbath every seventh week to prevent burnout), after I’d sat through a 1.5-hour podcast recording with my husband, I happily went downstairs to feed the baby before we were scheduled to drop our twins off with my mom, who (THANK GOD) wanted to take them for a couple of days.
It was a GREAT day. And then I saw the thermostat.
Though set at 78 (about all we can ask from it in three-digit temps), it was hitting about 82.
“What’s going on?” I said. Husband was in the kitchen, getting some water before he would wrangle the boys into the van.
He looked at the thermostat. “It’s just having trouble keeping up,” he said. “Because it’s so hot outside.”
I had a feeling he was wrong. But, you know, he’s a man. He knows more than I do about these kinds of things.
My three older boys kept coming over periodically to distract the baby and make us leave three hours later than we would otherwise, and every time they opened their mouths, the thermostat climbed a degree. “Close your mouths,” I said. “Your hot air is canceling out the air conditioner’s efforts.”
Husband came in to see if the baby was finished, and I pointed at the thermostat again. “Look,” I said.
The numbers blinked 88 degrees. Husband blinked at me. I saw his shoulders sag a little. He disappeared out back, and when he came in, I knew it wasn’t good news.
The air was quitting. In the middle of a Texas summer, where temperatures reach 10,000 degrees. Summer’s the best, isn’t it?
He called around, because of course he was going to fix it himself, but the place with the part wouldn’t be open by the time we’d dropped the twins off and made it back to town. They weren’t open on the weekend, either. Which meant we’d have to spend an entire weekend without the modern convenience of air conditioning.
“We can do it,” I said when Husband got off the phone. “They used to do it all the time back before air conditioning was around.”
“They also used to die much sooner,” Husband said, in uncharacteristic pessimism.
But I, in uncharacteristic optimism, knew we’d be just fine. In fact, I proposed starting a project called “The Little House on the Prairie Project” wherein we’d spend the rest of our summer without air conditioning and I’d write a book about how we survived. Husband said it should be called “The How Long Until they Kill Each Other Project.”
When we got back to the house without the twins, the temperature was at 90, but the good news was, we’d passed the hottest part of the day. We opened all the windows and let the breeze through.
“This isn’t so bad,” I said. Husband shook his head.
“No,” he said. “We couldn’t.”
“We could totally do this, though,” I said.
“We’re fixing the air conditioner,” he said.
I’m glad I listened. Because by the second night, when there was no breeze coming through the open wide windows and we all just lay in our beds with sleep far, far away in some other country, I knew there was no way my children would survive a summer without air conditioning, mostly because my temper was all hot and bothered and so was Husband’s. It’s weird how heat can do that to you. I’m just glad the twins were gone, because one more straw…
Husband fixed the air conditioning. And we lived happily ever after.
(Mostly.)
