Yes, I know what hot boxing is and no, I wasn’t actually hot boxing anything. BUT…it was pretty darn warm in my apartment last night. And every night for the rest of my life, apparently. My aunt very kindly gave me a window-unit air conditioner that she bought from a friend. I believe it is from the 1980s, but beggars can’t be choosers and I was definitely grateful. With the help of my mom, I put the A/C in my “kitchen” window with the hopes that it would cool down my whole apartment. I was wrong. It cools the square foot immediately surrounding the unit, but that’s about it. But, it was better than nothing. Right?
When I got home from work yesterday evening I was greeted with a glaring 92 on my thermostat. Not ok. Having just sweat through my clothes on the drive home I wanted nothing to do with stagnant air for the rest of the night. I decided to set up shop directly in front of the A/C. I put a camp chair about a foot in front of the window, set my laptop on top of the garbage can and watched Netflix like I was barefoot and pregnant. Even sitting directly in front of the air flow, I was only slightly less uncomfortable. I couldn’t even eat my entire BLT (which I had been craving ALL day) because of the heat. Eventually, I gave up and decided to jump in the shower. I stood under the refreshingly cool stream of water for what seemed like forever, pretending it was a waterfall on the “Lazy River”.
Once back in the reality of my sweltering apartment I knew I had to make a change. I decided that the A/C would be better used in my bedroom so that maybe I could get some sleep at some point this week. I struggled to remove the haphazardly placed pieces of cardboard and inched the unit off of the windowsill. In doing so, I spilled about a gallon of residual rainwater all over my bamboo floors. It felt wonderful. I finally succeeded in heaving the unit into my bedroom window, stuffed some towels around it to insulate and turned it on full blast. Nothing. Just a weak stream of semi-cool air. NO! I settled in to give it some time to cool the small room and tried to focus on my Netflix.
It was bed time. Sleep was not happening. After peeling off ALL of my clothes and sprinkling water on my exposed skin to catch any semblance of a breeze I had had enough. It was time to get creative. It was time to ghetto-rig. I heaved my naked body (yum, right?) out of bed and grabbed my unused window fan from the closet. Using the trash can as a stand I bent over the contraption working furiously (and still nude) to secure the long, thin fan with my leopard-print duct tape. It worked. And I was still sweaty. But, the breeze was palpable and the sweat provided a nice relief once it met the recycled air. I was able to snooze just a bit before the whole rig came crashing down and woke me with a start. So much for my innovation.
Ghetto-Fan
That's What She Said 
I’ve been waiting until payday to find an air conditioner for the bedroom off of craigslist. Sleeping (well closing my eyes either pretending to sleep dor to prevent the sweat from dripping in them at least) in the nude is not great when you have a nip addicted cat who likes to bring his remnants in the bed, and two others with claws and bringing in litter from their feet as if it was pollination has not been pretty. As if my eyes arent sunken in and dark enough as is…I think I may die or be mistaken as zombified leader of the apocalypse making horrid grunts and groans searching for comfort and sleep.