B-Rant

- submitted by B. Carrelli on 07/01/2008

Burning, Stupid Crazy: This is My Brain Without Air Conditioning

By Bari Carrelli

Southern California Edison sent a cheerful flyer with my bill promising up to $200 savings this summer if I sign up for their energy saving plan. All I have to do is allow them to periodically interrupt my air conditioner, up to 6 hours at a time, one or more times in one day. Saving money has become my mantra so I thought I would test out the concept and see how it felt to go without cool air on a hot Los Angeles day.

The forecast for Sunday is 100 degrees. My kids are with their dad so it's a good day to clean the house. I start with the dirty clothes and sort them into piles that stretch down the hallway like a chain of colorful islands. Wylie, the wonder wiener Christmas dog, curls his little body around the bright colors island while I wash the whites.

Next is dusting. The house is starting to warm up so I close the windows and blinds. More laundry. Scrubbing. Laundry. Vacuuming. Laundry. My shorts and t-shirt are getting sticky so I put on a cotton shift. I'm having a hard time concentrating; I run upstairs 3 times to get toilet paper for the downstairs bathroom, each time forgetting the toilet paper. More laundry.

I'm vacuuming the stairs when I notice big red spots all over my legs and arms; some are in rows of three. Not only am I hot and sticky, now I am spotted and itchy. I Google bug bite pictures and match my spots to fleas and bedbugs. Please God, don't let it be bedbugs. I've read about how it's nearly impossible to get rid of them, hiding in little cracks and crevices waiting to sneak out at night and feast on your blood. A flea infestation isn't much better. Maybe I have both.

I'm now hot, sticky, spotted, itchy and anxious. I need to get out of the house. I pull on a pair of jeans under my cotton shift and decide to go look at new cars. I've been researching new cars, but there is no pressing need to buy one today.

The Honda showroom floor is cool and quiet. The salesman shows me a blue Civic, the last one on the lot. I like it. I take his card. I should go grocery shopping but I like the car and the dealer is only open for two more hours.

I go home and check Bluebook prices for my Lexus and the Honda Civic. More laundry. The house still feels heavy and hot. I decide to take the Civic for a test drive. My Lexus is dirty and still has a weeks' worth of kids toys and detritus scattered in the back. I should clean it if I'm going to trade it in; but I barely have the energy to walk, and the house feels too oppressive to stay. I grab a garbage bag instead.

I return to the dealer, take the car for a test drive and decide to buy it. The salesman offers me a decent price for the Civic and a very low amount to trade in my Lexus.

I should negotiate with him but my brain seems to have frozen. All I can do is scrunch up my face into a look of unhappiness. I'm a hot, sticky, spotted, itchy, anxious, mute woman. I nod my head "ok" to the price. I remove my belongings from the Lexus and stuff them into the garbage bag. I feel like a bag lady.

I worry all the way home in my new car. When I arrive I open the doors and windows; downstairs feels a bit cooler, but upstairs remains an oven. I'm feeling dazed and it doesn't occur to me to turn on the air conditioner. I take a shower and discover even more bites. It's too hot to cook so I eat two bowls of cereal and watch CNN.

I'm exhausted but when I get to my bed I remember the bedbug pictures. I take a flashlight and examine the bed-frame and mattress. I don't see any bugs or droppings. I climb into bed. I'm replaying the car buying experience in my head over and over: Why did I drive my dirty Lexus to the dealer? Why didn't I negotiate more? Why did I even buy a car tonight?

My brain is jolted out of its loop of condemnation by a pain in my foot. It feels like a bug bite. Oh geez, I have bedbugs. I leap out of bed, tear off the sheets and put them in the washer with hot water.

I try to sleep on the floor in my loft office and am convinced that bugs are crawling all over me. I am hot and itchy and desperate. I get my kid's sky blue fluffy cloud sleeping bag and lay down on the backyard deck; Wylie shakes his head at me, as if to say "you poor crazy person" and curls up next to me.

We hear a noise and Wylie races to the corner of the yard to investigate. Rats are happily squeaking in a nearby tree. I drift off into a nightmare where everything in my house is infested with bedbugs and I am evicted with no clothes or belongings; nobody will take me in because they think I am infested too. I can't drive my new car because the bugs will move in. So I am doomed to wander the streets alone and itchy for the rest of my days.

In the morning I buy flea killer for Wylie, the lawn and the carpet. I go to the doctor for my growing number of bites.

The good news is that I do not have fleas or bedbugs. I have ringworm and mosquito bites. My doctor tells me that when I'm hot and sweaty I am more susceptible to bacteria, so cleaning the house with no air conditioning on a 100-degree day was probably a bad idea. And sleeping in the back yard may have turned me into a late night mosquito snack. I leave with a prescription for antibiotics and cream.

The air conditioner is back on, my house is cool, and I'm ready to evaluate my experiment. I've heard that during a heat wave tempers flare and crime increases. I didn't kill anyone, but I did acquire fungus, buy a new car on impulse, sleep with rats and mosquitoes in the backyard, suffer through a twelve-hour panic attack, and purchase assorted remedies for non-existent fleas.

If I sign up Southern California Edison's plan, and the air-conditioning shuts off, my kids will flee to a cool house in the neighborhood leaving Wylie and me to sit quietly in front of a fan, licking ice cubes, praying that I don't go burning stupid crazy again. Perhaps there is better way to be a good energy-saving citizen.

Bari Carrelli writes from a lovely Los Angeles suburb....read more rants