Today is one of those mornings when it’s 9:45 am and we’re already pushing ninety degrees. I’m a sweaty mess and my kids are screaming at each other. My toilet is dirty. I don’t know what I’m going to make for dinner and I’m sort of dreading it because it may involve using my stove and then I resort to drinking lots of white wine with ice cubes in it instead of going to Zumba class.
No Zumba = no wine calories burned
Do you SEE where my life gets all screwed up??
I would give my left ear and a dance around the neighborhood naked for some central air. No, we don’t have central air. We have a swamp cooler. Raise your hand if you know what a swamp cooler is.
The only people whose hands are up are from Utah.
The fancy name for a swamp cooler is an evaporative cooler. It’s this huge machine that sits on our roof. It has an internal pump for water and a turbine thingy that spins and it’s supposed to send cool, moist air down through one big vent. In theory, all the cool air coming in through this vent is supposed to spread out through the house in a uniform manner. As if.
When the clock reaches 3pm, the swamp cooler starts cussing and wheezing and calling me a tramp, and then it decides to send down scorching ninety-five degree air from the heavens. I figure this is because it hates me and wishes it lived in Maine where it wouldn’t have to work so hard.
I think a swamp cooler is a device that some Utah pioneer cheapo cruel fucker handyman invented to save money in the false hope that it would cool his house with a simple fan and moisture since moisture is what we have very little of in this state. When you compare a swamp cooler to central AC, it costs like one-eighth the price to run it all day long. Which is great. But you also have to factor into the equation that the only place in the house where you feel relief is right underneath the swamp cooler’s vent. And then you can figure you actually lose money because instead of being productive and working or raising your children to become functioning tax-paying members of society, you are laying naked on the hallway floor under the vent with a book and a glass of ice water.
It could be much worse, I know. I could be stuck in my tent-trailer for the entire summer, which sort of feels like a large version of an Easy-Bake oven. Or I could live in Phoenix, Macon, Tallahassee, or just the plain old BOWELS OF HELL.
Which I think was the real intention of the inventor of the swamp cooler. I’m pretty sure his ulterior motive was to make Gentiles like me suffer and cry at the ineptitude of their evaporative coolers since we don’t tithe and we don’t wear fancy sacred undergarments. He wanted to give us a small taste of what is to come. I’m sure his offspring and their offspring are sitting in houses with central air conditioning laughing their asses off while spending their swamp cooler royalties on expensive chocolates and lots of ice cream.
Little do they know, I will have the last laugh regarding the lowly swamp cooler. Not only will I sweat off three pounds indoors – I will be drinking ice water instead of eating expensive chocolates, reading lots of books, and my power bill WILL STILL BE LOWER THAN THEIRS.
As my good friend Charlie Sheen would say…WINNING!!
I love these stories. @Missy – you poor, poor thing. Kansas in the summer with only an attic fan. No wonder you live in Oregon now.
@Nicole – since you live right up the street, don’t be surprised if you see me and a couple of bedraggled children dragging sleeping bags up to your house. Get the margaritas ready.
We have both. Which is apparently not good. They compete for the coldest blow. Or something. Anyway, the key to a swamper is to open certain windows in the house. The cool air will go toward the escape route. Trust me. I’m totally fucking awesome and trustworthy.
I think we had one of those growing up. Only we called it an attic fan. It was a HUGE vent and loud as hell and the only time we experienced any relief was at midnight with all the windows thrown open while we laid half clad in our bedroom doorways while the wash of cool night air blew over us as it was sucked into the house with an intensity that very often caused our bedroom door to slam into us repeatedly. Refreshing.
When we moved here from Texas- i had never heard of this swamp cooler thing. I was taught if your if your AC ever fried out- run like hell to the nearest relatives house- they will let you in! So when we told our realtor “don’t care what that is- we want central air” He looked at me like I was a true princess and tried to explain the climate change I would experience- do what now?? It has been 100 degrees the past 10 summers I have lived here. My central air has made us popular, kept my babies chubby and my summer makeup always looks perfect:) oh whatever- my philosophy- if it’s cold- you can always add more layers on- if it’s too damn hot you cannot peel your skin off………….
Growing up in Kansas, where summers with heat & humidity averaged “150″, there were no central A.C. or swamp coolers. We thought swamp coolers were cold brews while noodlin’ at night. In fact, not many houses had any relief. My Dad installed a air cooler in our front room window. That was it! We laid in bed at night sweating 2 lb off. To feel any cool air one had to stand right in front of the cooler and practically stick your head in it. Mom had to change bed sheets every other day. I thought I had died and gone to hell!
I never heard of one of these. But I do think you need central air for your sanity! I can see why a tumbler full of wine is necessary at days end!
We have swamp coolers in Colorado. Well, some people do. Others have room air conditioning units that plummet two stories to their death. But no worries! It was only 102 MUTHA F#%KING degrees today.
Dear Cupcake: I’m sorry. I feel your mother’s pain. I should get up on my roof and scream obscenities. My neighbors would love that.
Dear Smartie Pants Sister: I did not put it there, nor did I drill the vent and hole in the roof. So…you can’t just easily move that fucker. Get me a window AC unit that plugs in the wall for my birthday. It is July 25th, in case you forgot. Thank you.
OH MY GOD. I spent my entire childhood (in the San Fernando Valley where your earlobes sweat) watching my mother on the roof of our house in her bathing suit calling the sputtering swamp cooler an asshole. Even then, at nine or ten, I remember thinking that the name “Swamp Cooler” meant something bad and I knew I would eventually need to escape.
what idiot put your swamp cooler on the roof? that’s where a majority of chinese put their SOLAR HOT WATER heaters. put it in the north side window where it belongs.