Well, something good comes of everything.

Our air conditioner went out last Sunday.  Of course, it was on the weekend, because these things never happen when a repairman can actually come over.

Our family once took a Christmas vacation to Aspen, Colorado.  We arrived on the evening of Christmas Eve to discover all the pipes in the entire house had frozen and burst.  I think there were twelve of us and nary a working toilet between us.  And not a single hotel room was available for a hundred miles.

It made for a very interesting situation, one that I’ll spare you the details of.  To say it was difficult to get a plumber to come over on Christmas Day is an understatement.  I think he probably bought a new Jag with the money he made.

Anyway, back at home with the broken A/C, we decided to sweat it out Sunday night and called the repairman first thing Monday morning.  My daughter bailed out and spent the night with a friend.

The next day the house was hot.  REALLY hot.  If you’ll remember, Monday and Tuesday were record hot days for this part of Texas.  After months of unseasonable cool days, our A/C chose to go out during the only two days in May that set records. Naturally.

And of course the air conditioner needed a part that wasn’t in stock, and they told us it would be at least Wednesday before it would come in.  It got up to 91 degrees inside the house on Monday and 95 on Tuesday.

When I was a kid and we didn’t know what air conditioning was, I don’t remember this ever happening.  But our homes back then were built to catch the wind, and attic fans helped immensely to cool the house.

But this house has lots of windows that don’t even open.  You can’t imagine how the sweat beaded up within seconds of walking inside, even with fans blowing everywhere.  You know it’s hot when you have to peel your underwear off when you get undressed.

But some good things came out of it.

One was that I had been needing to work in the yard for months, but it was so far down on my list of things to do that I couldn’t even think about it.  Well, when you can’t work at your computer (hottest room in the house), can’t cook (the house would be 110 degrees!), can’t clean (any amount of exertion caused profuse waterworks), and can’t sit (because you stick to the chair), the only thing you CAN do is go outside.  At least there was a little breeze when cars went by.  At any rate, I got a lot done outside.

That afternoon, we decided there was no way we could sleep in the house again, so we packed up and went to a hotel.

This was the other good thing.  It was the best little mini-vacation I’ve ever had.  We ate out every meal, we swam, somebody made up our beds, and we could just run home if we forgot something.  There was no hassle at the airport, no long drives, the kids didn’t miss school, and we didn’t need a couple of days to recuperate from the exhaustion of having fun.

In fact, it was so much fun, I think everyone should try it.  A vacation from your house, but not from your hometown.  It’s a great idea!

I was actually disappointed when the A/C guy said he had it fixed.  But it’s an old unit.  Maybe it’ll happen again next year.