Trying to live a cool life with air conditioning

I'm just a guy trying to be cool during the hottest part of the summer.

The way I look at air conditioning in the summer is we should just run it 24 hours a day, cranked up high, with a way low temperature level, as if we're all independently wealthy and could throw money out the windows if they weren't all locked tightly to keep the heat out.

And, while we're at it, we might try to believe we don't care a lick about what our carbon dioxide emissions are doing to the environment, at least anybody's environment but our own personal one — the one that doesn't make us sweat and in fact makes us want to put on a sweater because the air conditioner works so well. In fact, we're so cold we can't possibly consider global warming.

Also, who cares about the cost for using the air conditioner continuously at home? What does it matter if blasting the air conditioner in the car uses up extra expensive fuel? Just turn the radio up so we can't hear our money sort of blowing out through the vents. Consider it background noise.

The fact is I'd air condition the whole outdoors — everybody leave their doors open to their air conditioned homes — if I thought it was physically possible. The person who comes up with a way to keep the hot air out of the atmosphere is going to win the Nobel Prize for physics someday.

But, I digress. Heat spells like the current one make me feel sweaty and selfish. And, no, it doesn't help me get rid of my self-interested attitude if I wear loose-fitting clothes, sit in the shade or stay hydrated.

Growing up without air conditioning

Maybe I have these self-centered feelings because I grew up in a home without air conditioning.

Although the 1950s was the decade that cool indoor air became favored in the United States, with units becoming a priority in businesses and popular in homes, our abode had neither a whole house central air or single room window air conditioner.

We conditioned our indoor air by exposing our screens and bringing in cool outdoor breezes.

Cooling our home became an all-day quest. We closed the windows and shades on the sunny side of the house and opened the ones still in the shade in the morning, and reversed the process as the sun changed its position in the afternoon. I still can smell the lilac tree that grew next to a window opened late on spring and early summer afternoons.

It was a delicate balance that required constant attention. But, the system itself was based on a simple premise. Try to capture as much cool air in the morning and evening as you could with an open window, and if it was moving through the house blowing warm air out through another window, all the better.

When it was hot and humid and calm, you simply sweat. But, a family who perspires together whines as one. We were all in the same boat when the seas were smooth and the sun was shining.

Conditions for the conditioner

So, now that air conditioning is available in my house, I have the following rules to keep cool.

There is no preferable setting on an air conditioner other than "high."

If you cool your house so much that you're cold, simply layer up with long-sleeved shirts and sweaters.

Never turn an air conditioner off at night when the air outside seems to have cooled for the evening. Sleep is deeper and more constant if you shiver as you get into bed, then snuggle up under a comforter.

I'll admit, the problem is that my loved one isn't in support or agreement with these rules.

My loved one likes fresh air. She doesn't endure cold easily — or foolish guys who create it.

And she doesn't mind engaging in a system of opening and closing windows on a schedule determined by breezes and the rise and fall of outside temperatures, drawing and pulling open our blinds with watchful frequency. I think she actually enjoys keeping tabs on the temperature.

She tries daily to protect our environment inside our home and yours outside of it. She treds on both lightly, compared to my clod-hopping, and she hardly ever leaves much of a carbon footprint.

I won't tell you who wears the protective pants in our family and makes the final decisions about how long or how high we run our air conditioning. Let's just say that on these hot and muggy days of summer, it has at times gotten to be a pretty sticky situation around our house.

I suppose, when I'm not sweating, I feel good about it.

Reach Gary at gary.brown.rep@gmail.com.

On Twitter: @gbrownREP

This article originally appeared on The Repository: Gary Brown writes about staying cool with air conditioning