I grew up in a tropical climate, so, when I moved eight hours north, I didn’t expect the summers to be as hot.
Boy, was I wrong! When I moved here, it was because I was looking for a small neighborhood that was still in the south.
My old house neighborhood had just gotten too giant for my tastes and I wanted a safe place to raise my children. I brought the kids up here a few months before my partner joined us, and rented us a rather nice little three living room mobile house with central heat and air conditioner for a really relaxing price. Then, the heat wave came. Every afternoon, the hot and cold temperatures went up to over a hundred and five degrees, the heat index ranged between one hundred and ten to one hundred and twenty, and even my central air conditioner was useless. I went to my landlady’s condo to complain, and her place was just as hot as mine. I went to my sister’s condo on the other side of town. She had window air conditioners in every room, and even her condo was unbearably hot. I did manage to find a way to keep us cool. The tiny middle living room in my mobile house would really stay pretty cool if I ran the cooling system on full blast and kept the door closed, so, my associate and I spent about a week in that room. I worked the overnight shift at a local diner, and, when I got house with the kids in the morning, my associate and I got food, drinks, toys and books and the kids and I would stay in that room and appreciate the cool air conditioner while I dozed. At times I felt terrible keeping the kids in that little room, but, they didn’t seem to mind. It seemed it was the only place in neighborhood to stay cool.