I have recently endured a painfully freezing, unbelievably long, bleak and abominable winter. During Spring I was still wearing a jumper (Australian for sweater) during the day and then it rained, deluged in fact, relentlessly, for 4 or 5 weeks.
So now that summer is finally here,kindly help me understand, why am I still wearing warm clothes and shivering at my desk at work? Why do I curse when I arrive at a restraunt without a coat? Why does no one else in this country seem to relish the idea of sweating profusely, melting, legs sticking to the seat of a chair, air thick and balmy around naked skin?
It’s summer. We’re supposed to be hot!!! That’s the idea of summer. That’s the whole point. Heat. Warmth. Sweat. What am i not getting?
And you know, I think i might have an easier time understanding it, if everybody hadn’t complained miserably about how cold the winter was.
I’m confused.
I’m furious and dissapointed that it’s the middle of summer and I spend all day being cold.
What kills me is when it cools off outside – like at night – and the person in question (with whom I just broke up) won’t turn off the a/c and let in some fresh air. Or runs the a/c in the car on a perfectly nice evening so that he has to keep running the wipers to get rid of the condensation he’s creating. (Gah. Who knew the last straw would be our respective a/c habits?)
Well, we’re fresh air freaks, but there ARE limits. In our particular below-sea-level swamp, AC saves our life. But at home, we keep it no lower than 76-78F, and any time the weather goes below about 80 (the humidity is usually still at least 90% so it’s still warm), we turn it OFF and open the windows.
That being said, I also keep a sweater in the car so I won’t freeze when I go out. Meat locker temperature. Why? What’s wrong with at least being comfortable inside as well as out?
I also have a friend who’s a native of Miami (and still lives there) who turns her AC down to 70 at night, and runs ceiling fans on high in all the bedrooms. Last time I stayed with her, I brought my own heavy winter blanket, she didn’t have any that were warm enough! Now THAT is ridiculous, to use a winter blanket in Miami in May!!!
I am blessed with an office that has windows that you can actually open! This means that instead of making sure to bring an extra layer (or layers) of clothing to work, I can close my door, crack the window, and let in some of the swelter from outside. Aaahhhhhhhh.
I still feel a bit guilty for wasting energy to air-condition the whole neighborhood, since my office does have a thermostat, but repeated inquires into whether we could possibly turn up the temperature to some kind of compromise value have gone unanswered, and, dammit, I should not have to wear a sweater (or jumper ) to work in July.
I don’t have air conditioning in my apartment – but I wish I had! I prefer things cool. Pacific Northwest weather. The mid-fifties and maybe a little mist is great weather. Much above 75°F and it starts to become untolerable.
The people in my office absolutely slay me. In the summer, they set the thermostat to 72. But if the temp in winter drops below 78, they whine and moan and bitch and complain. These people are nuts!
The last boss bought one of those locking covers for the thermostat, but someone managed to break the lock. And it’s set up so that you can insert a plastic knife thru the air vents in the cover and adjust the temp anyway!
I just keep an old, light-weight fleece jacket in the office - I wore it most of this past week. Life’s too short to play the thermostat game.
Incidentally, at home, the AC is set at 78, and all the ceiling fans run on low. It’s comfy in here when it’s 90+ outside with dripping humidity.
I can’t wait until i get to America in a few weeks because of the superior air conditioning. It was really hot this week (well, for england anyway) but because hot weather is quite unusual there aren’t a lot of places with air conditioning so you have to suffer in the heat. Not long until autumn now!! Yay!
My SO insist on keeping the A/C turned to 68. Recently I managed to sneak it up to 70 and he hasn’t noticed yet, but!..we also have fans (ceiling or floor) in **every single room in the house and they run constantly. ** I have to wear a jacket, in the house, in the summer, when it’s 90 degrees outside.
Sometimes its a shock even going outside. I forget that it is hot out there, I will remove my jacket, soak in some warmth, then go back inside to brave the elements.
One morning I thougt it felt a little bit more nipply than usual, so I checked the thermostat in the bedroom. 66 degrees.
We went on vacation in Feburary, to Colorado. Lots of snow…actually it was great because its a different kind of cold. Anyway, while we were on vacation, I had turned the heat off completely at the our house. When we got back home, 10 days later, it was 65 degrees. So, my house, with no heat at all in the middle of winter, is no colder than my bedroom in the middle of summer!
Mind blowing isn’t it.
SO, my dear Scantilly, have a blanket, I’ve got plenty.
Don’t hate the air conditioning just because some folks overuse it. People walked into my store all day yesterday telling me how great it felt. I was running my swamp cooler and the temperature indoors was in the 70’s versus the unbearable high 90’s outdoors.
And during the winter…
I hate being hot and sweaty. It gripes me in the winter when I dress for the cold weather, and then walk into a store or office that’s heated like an incubator. It’s snowing outside, and I’m sweating in heavy pants, socks, and long-sleeved shirt.
Well if it weren’t for air conditioning I would not be able to walk right now. My feet would have swelled so much that the skin would be stretched and painfully red.
That said, we keep the AC set at 80.
My father always had one room in the house with ac (a window one) set on the highest setting. So the whole house would be intolerably hot except for the one room that was intolerably arctic. I could go from sweating to shivering in 2 seconds flat. And I always had a cold all summer from having to sit with him in that room to keep him company and then going out to school or work in the heat.
Restaurants and the like have it tough. When the place is busy their air conditioning can barely keep up but when it is off peak then it gets the place meatlocker cold. They can’t win! I bring a sweater.
Mama Tiger YOU may be a fresh air freak. I am all for meat locker. I kept my apartment at about 70, and loved it, though I did have to pay the power bills!
I HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE being hot. I’d much rather be too cold than be too hot. This house is regularly too warm for me. But I keep my mouth shut.
I love cold. Wintertime, I open the windows at night. I have real trouble sleeping if it is more than 70 or so inside. It just gets really stuffy. Best sleeping temp is more like 60. At least those of you who are always cold can add clothing. Theres a limit to how much clothing I can take off, and not be arrested. So those who are always cold have it better.
I’m with whiterabbit: meatlocker= happy. Everyone else should just learn to wear more clothing.
I hate it too…don’t even have on in the house. Plenty of open windows and ceiling fans cool off the house plenty.
At work, the first day in my office I snipped the plug right off the cord.
My dislike for AC was one of the items on my long list of ideal compatible mates. We lived in marital bliss part of the time and fought other times…but at least we never felt like cadavers in a pull out drawer.
I’ve yet to turn it on in the car. Even in traffic with the windows open and the heat from the exhaust waffing up, I prefer to leave it off. On those really hot days, off comes the shoes, socks, shirts and shorts.
Do I care people in SUV’s and trucks can see me driving home in my briefs? No. It’s not like I’m an exibitionist in a convertable - just makin myself comfortable.
I hate the heat as well, and because I’m on Paxil, I have a very low tolerance for hot weather.
I prefer it when the house is nice and cool. It’s also much healthier.
The reason people in businesses should keep the air running even when the store is closed is because then it has to work even harder to cool off the building when you turn it back on. When I worked at Kmart, they turned it off at night, and as a result, it never worked properly.
I’m not particularly picky about temperatures. I don’t really care if its hot or cold. I love being warm, so if its cool, I’ll just but more clothes on.
But I LOVE the AC. Not for the temperature control, but for the allergy control. I have awful allergies in the summer and the AC fills my house with wonderful cold, dry, allergen-free air.
You might feel differently if, like me, spending even a few minutes in too-hot weather left you with a raging, pounding headache for the rest of the day. The last few days at work have been miserable, because apparently the company feels that us night shifters don’t need comfortable working conditions. Complaints go unheeded, because they use the excuse that the temperature is set for the machines, not the workers. Which is crap, because even our robots were sweating. Luckily, we have a walk-in refrigerator set at 4 degrees C that I can go hang out in periodically.
) to work in July.