Misery is imminent, and also extraordinarily sweaty…

I don’t mean to sound all dramatic, but if you were face-to-face with the fear of having to drive around the most sweltering time of the year with only the occasional faint breeze to cool the otherwise volcanic interior of your truck, bus, or automobile of choice, I trust that you’d better understand the dire straits that I currently face.  I mean, I live in Florida – our state slogan is all about the sun – it’s really, really hot here! The idea of driving around without air conditioning even at two o’clock in the morning for a quick trip to the store is an unfathomable fate that I wouldn’t dare wish upon my worst of enemies…

It started about a week ago when some random air conditioner widget buried deep within the mysterious confines of my dashboard began making this god-awful sound that even the loudest of rock songs couldn’t seem to drown out.  I guess you could say that it kind of resembles the sound that a songbird might make if given a tiny megaphone, although at this point I’m fairly confident it’s not that.  All I know is that it chirps louder and louder the longer my AC runs until eventually I give in and turn the whole thing off in fear of killing it, cringing as my sweet, sweet conditioned air is quickly bludgeoned into submission by the overwhelming heat and humidity that our fiery Florida summers are all too well known for.

Sure, I could just crank the radio up and let the sweet, sweet sounds of Duran Duran do their best to distract me as my vehicle’s cooling power deteriorates before my very eyes, enjoying every last flurry of cold refreshment while I still can, but at the same time I can’t say that I’m exactly anxious to take my prized jalopy into the auto repair shop to get it “fixed,” either!  I just know that it’s going to end up costing something like $7,000 to evict that overzealous blue bird and restore my car’s interior to its former, non-sweltering glory, and not for nothing, but for that kind of money I could probably pay a guy to sit in the passenger seat and spritz me every so often with one of those spray bottles with the fan that people desperately buy at theme parks for $14.95 a piece and yet still have change leftover to stop into Cold Stone to pick up a little treat for me and my new refreshingly cool friend afterwards!

Of course, you don’t have to tell me that a working air conditioner isn’t a luxury here in the sizzling Sunshine State as much as it’s a necessity and unless I can either figure out how to maybe install a portable freezer into my car or otherwise make arrangements to just hold up in the comfort of my fully-functioning, reliably air-conditioned home until I strike it rich and/or this stupefying heat heads south for the winter itself, it’s really only a matter of time before my car’s precious AC is just going to die altogether and that’s a day that I’m obviously not looking forward to all that much.  I’m trying to prolong it the best I can by only running the AC in short, non-chirpy bursts, but much like trying to patch the Hoover Dam with a piece of chewing gum, sooner or later the whole thing is still going to give and I’m going to find myself deluged with 9.2 trillion gallons of water…

…or heat – I suppose it would actually be 9.2 trillion gallons of heat in my own sticky scenario…

…also, admittedly probably not quite as much heat – maybe a hundred or so gallons, tops…

…either way, it’s still a lot of heat – that’s kind of what I was going for with the whole Hoover Dam analogy there…

…sooo – any mechanics  out there want to charge a guy less than $7,000 to fix an air conditioner???

If not, the spray bottle position may be opening up here shortly, too, so get those resumes updated and ready for that…