Remembering Air Conditioning

Does anybody else on this forum remember what it used to be like when you were a kid? On those really hot days in the middle of an Australian summer? My mum was notorious in our house for just blasting that air conditioning as soon as the weatherman on the telly mentioned a number higher than twenty-five. My dad hated it! He would get home from work at 5:17 (on the dot, every day) and immediately storm over to the thermostat and turn down the air conditioning. Canberra probably heard him yelling! Those were the days…

Now things are so much different since we basically only have summer now. It makes the air conditioning less special, you know? Like, why bother yelling about how high it’s set to when every other day we’re setting some kind of meteorological record about how hot it’s become? And heaven forbid you need some kind of professional air conditioning services, near Canberra or any major city – the wait times alone might get you before the heat does. 

Ah well. It’s good to remember the past at least. My sister remembers all of that completely differently, of course (contrarian that she’s always been!). She said that it was actually Dad who liked a cold house, and Mum who was always grumbling! Maybe I’ve got it backwards and Dad would come home from work in the winter and turn the heating system down…

Oh, I don’t know! Who can be expected to remember such things? Certainly not me in my rapidly advancing old age. It is nice to remember though… that cold rush of air, rippling slowly through the house, the ever-present hum of a ceiling fan pushing it into your room and whooshing down the hallway… I hope this generation is making memories like that. Something similar… something that brings them hope when, one day, they look back and realise that in those strange little moments – well, things will just never be that good again.