DISCLAIMER: I realize that whining about the heat in my car makes me a privileged turd. Clearly, there are far more pressing tragedies happening around the world.
To those who have never lived in or visited the Deep South, you may not relate to this post as you do not know what it is like to walk around in a Crock-Pot full of chicken noodle soup.
A few weeks ago, I was taking my grandmother to a doctor’s appointment when I noticed my car making an unfamiliar and alarming noise. The tat-tat-tat under the hood could mean nothing good. I took the car to the mechanic later that day hoping it was going to be a quick, cheap fix.
That hope was squandered when I was told that my entire air conditioning system was beginning to fail and unless I could come up with $1,700, it would soon stop completely.
As a writer and a teacher who works nearly two full-time jobs to make ends meet, and as someone who has mounds of student loans and credit card debt, I was left with only one solution: keep using my air as if nothing happened and ignore the problem altogether.
Well, last week, my aging car, the only major purchase I’ve made and paid off on my own, started blowing hot air on my face.
Alabama is still a pit of humid despair and until very recently, the heat index was still hovering around 100 degrees every day. The first day this happened I was on my way home. I had a panic attack and cried. After I medicated, I resolved that I could make it in the sauna that was now my car until the cooler weather arrived. I have roughly an hour commute each way on Mondays and Wednesdays and around a thirty-minute commute each way on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays. During these times in the newly stifling car I’ve learned some things.
Those giant trucks with eighteen wheels are terrifying. My commute has a lot of construction that keeps me moving slowly in the right lane to avoid a speeding ticket. With my windows down, I find myself nearly jumping out of my skin when a semi comes barreling down the highway at ninety miles per hour to my left making a threatening chugging noise. Suddenly, I feel like I’m a character in Maximum Overdrive about to meet her match.
Sometimes, I feel the urge to stick my hand out the window and wave it through the air as it cuts the wind. When I do this, it makes me feel like I’m taking the more positive approach. It’s like, “Hey, maybe this won’t be so bad, I can connect with my inner child.” So I’ll roll the window all the way down and fling my arm out the window like I’m a carefree woman ready to take on the world. Well, it’s all fun and games until you see the flapping your underarm does in the wind. Adulthood and beer consumption means that my arms aren’t in tip-top shape, especially when it comes to parading them around outside for the rest of the world. One glimpse of my skin shooting back behind my bones has me whipping my arm back inside quicker than you can say “batwings.”
Y’all. Sweat can literally be everywhere. I’ve always been someone that sweats more than the average bear. When I’m doing ab exercises at the end of my gym workout, I leave a crime-scene-like puddle of sweat underneath me. What I didn’t realize was that having no AC in my car meant that I’d come home with my clothes completely saturated and I have what I can only describe as a heat rash in some super unpleasant areas.
I will say that because of the sweating, I did learn that I can completely remove my pants while driving.
If I leave the windows up, it feels like the air is being sucked right out of my lungs and replaced with the air from a space heater. Obviously, keeping the window down, even when it’s hot, is the only way to keep the stagnant air moving. I realize this is my best option. However, I now know that I will never, under any circumstances, own a convertible because it turns out having my hair fly all over the car and tickling my nose and cheeks makes me actually insane. In the morning I pull together the tightest ponytail I can fathom on my head but by the end of the day, it doesn’t matter. I look like I’ve been struck by lightning.
One of the only perks of an hour commute is the concert-level performances I give in my car. Friends, I have a playlist that has me belting out showtunes, Celine Dion ballads, and every Little Big Town harmony. Since my air has been out, and the windows have been down, the acoustics are terrible. How can I possibly sing to my fullest potential when I can’t even hear my music? It’s disgusting.
Not only can I not keep my spirits up with music, the heat makes me unbearably sleepy. I’ll find my eyelids closing and my mouth opening in a desperate yawn as I try splashing what is now boiling water from my reusable bottle in my face. It’s no use trying to stick my head out the window either. Sure, you may smell the local barbecue joint at first but inevitably, a dead, rotting, now unidentifiable animal will filter in to your senses and you’ll start to gag. At least you’re awake now.
When the sun does you a solid and goes behind the clouds for a minute, your broken and nearly non-existent spiritual life will be renewed. The shade reveals the Lord to me in new ways, y’all. The best scenario has been rain. It’s like, sure, my left arm is soaking wet and my hair is now glued to my neck and cheeks, but I don’t even care. The sun isn’t physically warming my car like a damn outdoor pizza oven.
I know that years of frigid temperatures in my home and work spaces have made me completely unable to deal with heat. I read recently that cold temperatures in offices are sexist because men like it cooler. Well, I never thought I’d say this, but until my air situation is resolved, keep those sexist temps coming. Like, I want to be so bone-chilling cold when I leave work that it takes me half the trip home to thaw out.
I have actually left the house every day with the resolve to be positive, but no matter what, I end up in a bad mood.
There are two silver linings, however. Though the humidity is still aggressive, temperatures are finally dropping down to the 80s and I never thought I’d say this, but the 80s are way more pleasant than 90s/100s. Also, my bff, who also hates being hot, texted the other day that she had a surprise for me.
She bought me a car seat cushion that literally blows cold air up my ass. It’s been wonderful. Certainly there’s at least a lesson here in loving your friends and appreciating the small things, like a cooler taint.
