The Politics of Air Conditioning

It's two a.m. My bedroom is about 35 degrees celcius. I have an upright fan that I've positioned inches from my bed, and in the stiflingly hot night air it's doing a great job of simulating the winds of the Sahara. I think I've had about seventeen minutes of dozey napping so far tonight. Not what you would call actual sleep though. But I don't care. I am strong. I am Australian.

I don't need air conditioning.

Ugh... so hot...

Shit... two-thirty... I'm convinced one of my housemates snuck into my room before I went to bed and replaced my bedsheets with wet towels. That's what it feels like: I'm sleeping on a nest of goddam wet towels. Big thick wet towels soaked through with hot water. That's the most logical explanation at two-thirty in the morning after a week of sketchy, feverish, sweaty attempts at sleep.

Wait, did I say two-thirty? It's three. Three a.m. and still no sleep. This is good though. I am strong. I am environmentally conscious. Let the molly-coddled mummy's boys of America have their air conditioning. I am Australian. I grew up on the most arid continent on the planet. I grew up expecting that any moment an army of red-bellied black snakes and funnel web spiders were going drop from the sky and eat my face off (or something. I may have gotten a little confused about that along the way). I am tougher than I appear. I may be as camp as a row of tents but by God I don't need a freaking air conditioner.

...gng.... I think I'm having a moment like Ewan McGregor in Trainspotting where he sees the baby crawling across the ceiling, except instead of dead babies I see a procession of penguins carrying trays of icey cold water.

I turn on my side, partly to expose my back to my Sahara fan and partly to ignore the penguins cheerfully traipsing across my ceiling. Still can't sleep, and like most people do when they can't sleep, I begin introspective musings on why I can't sleep...

I hate people telling me what to do. When I got here, one of the first things Daniel said to me was "you're going to have to buy an air conditioner". Phshaw, I said to him. I hate air conditioning. I'm Australian. I don't need air conditioning. "You're going to need to buy an air conditioner," he said again as though speaking to a developmentally disabled child. My resolve hardened: I would not need to buy an air conditioner.

Why so proud, Tim? What, are you in a Greek Tragedy? Your hubris refuses to allow you to see the wisdom in buying an air conditioner? The blind prophet Tiresias appears, foretelling doom, misery, and crappy sleep patterns unless you yield and get an air conditioner, and you, in your stubborn pride, toss him out of the city with warnings never to return... The gods are displeased...

God I need some sleep.

Shit, it's three-thirty. Three-thirty! I remember what sleep was like. It was so nice. So... not damp... or something.

You know what else? I hate not knowing something. I came over here thinking that the Australian summer was about as hot as anything I would need to live through. But New York is just as hot. Maybe hotter. It's definitely more humid. Some mornings I get up and there's a haze in the air like fog, except it's steam. Steam. Like in a sauna. It's so freaking damp and hot in the city that the air becomes STEAMY. I didn't know this before I came over. So I pretend like I always knew, and made a conscious decision not to buy an air conditioner despite knowing that New York in Summer is like living on the planet Venus, because if I was to buy an air conditioner then everyone would know that I didn't know and... and... well I'm not sure exactly what would happen but I'll be damned if I give anyone the satisfaction of seeing me not know something.

The penguins have set up a little wading pool near my closet. One of them smugly waves his little black flipper at me. Yeah, rub it in you tuxedo-wearing jerk. Not all of us can afford a swimming pool. What an ass-hat.

I roll onto my other side, so now I'm getting a faceful of hot air. It's about as refreshing as lying in front of an industrial-strength hand-dryer in a public restroom.

Four a.m... the sun will be up soon... (don't think about it because then you'll get even shittier and won't be able to sleep even more and that will just make you crankier and you have a hard enough time getting any work done in this oven of a bedroom as it is and if you've had no sleep at all then you may as well just pack it in because you'll be as productive as a sack of hammers)...

WHY IS IT SOOO HOT.... In Australia right now, it's winter... lovely, cool, sleety winter... bliss...

The resident penguins have called all their penguin-friends over for a penguin-party. They show up in their little air-conditioned penguin-minivans, carrying penguin-picnic baskets, penguin-kids chasing each other around their harried but happy penguin-parents, squawking cheerful hellos to each other. But they all keep one eye on the sweaty human lying prostrate in front what is essentially a decorative fan, like the crazy-cat-lady's house in a Stepford Wives' neighborhood... squawk squak squwaaaak... no air conditioning....

I hate doing something just because everyone else does it. "Gee willikers! You mean everyone in New York has an air conditioner? Well golly whiz, I guess I better get one, too! Because if everyone does something then it automatically is the best thing to do! I mean, if history has taught us one thing, it's that it's best to just do everything that everyone else does all the time! Wowee zowee! Off I go to buy an air conditioner!"

My sarcastic monologue ignores the Ireland-debacle of '09.

I hate being wrong.

However... I also hate my nighttimes being reduced to fitful bouts of sweaty half-sleep as I lay spreadeagled and damp on top of my bed like a decomposing starfish. Sunlight begins to insinuate itself through the curtains, promising that things are only going to get hotter than they are now. I finally crack. I half bellow and stagger to my feet, standing on my bed, swaying from side to side, dripping with sweat and fury and torment. The penguins, sensing something biblical is about to happen, pack up their picnic baskets and the wading pool and their icey drinks with comic haste and escape squawking behind my chest of drawers. I barely notice. I begin to tear my bedding apart in a primeval physical expression of the battle that rages inside me. The suffocating air in my room is filled with inhuman grunts and feathers from my pillow.

...UNGGH... Why do I resist air conditioning? ...NGNUGH... Am I freakin' Amish? ...ggnARGH... Do I not enjoy all the other benefits of modern civilization? Do I eschew the virtues of public transport, lattes, antibiotics, thermal underwear, iPods, Hollywood movies, refrigerators, elevators, ball-point pens, electric lights, democracy, internet pornography, Converse sneakers, supermarkets, non-institutionalised religion, shampoo specifically designed for curly hair, year-round tomatoes, dental floss, mobile phones, universal equality, Ray Ban sunglasses, laptop computers, orthopedic mattresses, digital cameras or frozen yoghurt? NO! I DON'T! So why the hell do I refuse to succumb to GODDAM AIR CONDITIONING?! ...gnnnnaAAAAAAAAARGGHH!!!!!!....

...

So I bought an air conditioner and now my room is lovely and cool and I sleep like a baby every night and my pride and Australian cultural stereotypes and the environment and the penguins can go to hell.