Hot Flash, Cold Tea

      I am dying. Absolutely dying. Okay, I am overexaggerating by a long shot. I may not be dying, but it sure feels like I am currently staying in an oven. Right now, at 1:40am, it is just now cooling down to 66 degrees outside and a forgiving 80 degrees indoors. All of yesterday during the daytime, it was a miserable 92 to 95 in my apartment. Early, early yesterday morning around 6am, I was jolted awake by an unusual banging and scraping sound; metal on metal. At first, I was a small bit confused by the unfamiliar noises bellowing through the hall, but after a closer inspection, it was clear to me that the racket was coming from my central air. 

     "Don't panic", I said to myself outloud, remembering the wise words of Douglas Adams. 

      Side note: I adore Douglas Adams and all of his books, but I am especially fond of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Not only did I greatly enjoy the book, I actually loved the movie that came of it. Normally, movies made from books I like end up majorly disappointing me. 

     Anyway, "Don't panic!" I took a deep breath in after finding out what the unnatural noise was coming from, and instinctively, I turned the machine off completely. I was already rather afraid of the possible damage that had been caused before the sound brought my sleep to a grinding (literally) halt. I wasn't 100% sure what was going on with my air conditioner, but loose sounding bits and scraping made me think, after pondering a moment, the motor was shot. With dread clouding my head space, I reluctantly called the apartment office. I never want to talk to the landlord, for she is rude and never even a tiny shred understanding. Luck had pity on me after the AC fiasco I guess, because she wasn't near the phone, and I was able to get by with leaving a voice message on her machine, politely asking for a repair man to make his way to my apartment. 

    Hours go by; they are busy people. This complex has at least 50 different apartments on the property. Maybe even more, as I am not for sure. In any case, the whopping 4 repair men have their work cut out for them. I didn't sweat the man taking much longer than anticipated, but I did sweat through three tank tops and a t shirt while I waited. 

    Hot tea just sounded so gross to me yesterday after enduring the unrelenting heat. So, I decided to dump about a cup of ice in it from the get-go. It felt so much nicer in the clinging hot temperatures of my preheating apartment. By the middle of the day, I needed the cold sips of tea to power through the lack of central air.

      And so, this guy finally shows up at my door unnanounced at around 1pm and scares the bejeebees out of me with a hearty knock that seemed to bust through my person. I mean, it wouldn't have felt much different to me had he knocked directly on my chest. With shaking hands, I let him in and left him to do his thing. Here and there I would hear clanging of tools against the metal air conditioning unit and then against the laminate flooring. It was about thirty minutes before the man came to me, letting me know it did in fact need an entirely new motor. A fin weld had snapped, in case anyone is curious. In any case, the loud-knocking man is expected to be back today to fix it up, and hopefully I will once again have a cool environment to stay in. But for now, I am thinking more iced tea is in my near future.