I live in
Florida. It’s
hot.
Really fucking hot.
Growing up with my parents could have been a lot worse. But one of the things in my family that always started a
knock-down drag-out fight was
heat. Keep in mind that my parents, like many parents, can always be counted on for the following things:
1) Being tight-fisted when it comes to spending money on
electricity.
2) Being
paranoid about
everything.
3) Always being too cold.
See, my father grew up in the
Caribbean and I think my mother is
cold-blooded. But I spent my formative years playing in the snow in
New Jersey and only got dragged down here for my teenage
angst period. So while it was
paradise for them, it was
purgatory for me.
My parents’ house allegedly has
central air, but the cold air rarely got to my room in the corner of the house. So my parents installed a
ceiling fan, which helped a bit, but my parents tended to turn it off while I was away, so I would come home from school to a hot room.
One day I asked my mother why they always turned off my fan. She said, "We don’t like to leave it on when nobody’s here. Something could happen.
It might start a fire."
I was nonplussed. "If you think my ceiling fan is going to
burst into flames then TAKE IT OUT OF MY CEILING! I keep it on at night! I don’t want a
GIANT SPINNING WHEEL OF FLAMING DEATH killing me while I sleep!"
Seeing that the logic of her argument was a bit flawed, she then said, "okay, we just turn it off when nobody’s here to
save electricity."
"Oh, okay."