The first heatwave has come on way too early this year. We expect it in summer, but it’s still officially spring. Global warming may or may not be to blame, because I can remember a few heatwaves when I was growing up in Indiana. There was no air conditioning in those days, unless you went to a department store or movie theatre. Most of us just sweat it out at home in various degrees of undress. As kids, we ran under a garden sprinkler hose to cool down. But grownups had to keep on going to work, taking care of children, cooking, doing laundry. Nowadays, most everyone has air conditioning. Except, sometimes you don’t. Even without a power blackout, the air conditioner often gets overloaded and breaks down. What to do? How to survive a heatwave A/C meltdown:
While you’re waiting in line for a repairman to come and fix whatever’s broken, here’s what you can do to cool a house with damp towels. This also works if you have a two story house, with an upstairs room that the air conditioning doesn’t reach.
1. Close all windows and doors in the early morning. Draw all the shades and pull the curtains shut.
2.Find every fan you have in the house, on the porch, garage, or basement and turn them on. .
3. Go to your linen closet and pull out some bath towels. Soak them in cold water. A damp towel, preferably light-colored, should hang in a window or in front of a fan, where its trapped water evaporates and cools the air flowing through it. Your rooms may not get as cold as they would with an air conditioner, but the towels and fans will alleviate the worst of the heat. And the noise from a fan is far less than a window air conditioner.
Meanwhile, turn off the oven. Eat cold cuts, or go for carry out.
Believe it or not, some people don’t have air conditioners at all. 87% of Americans have some type of air conditioning , but that’s true in only 8% of the rest of the world. You, too, can survive a heatwave without an air conditioner.
Finally, you might download you tube music “HeatWave,” , and listen to Irving Berlin’s popular song from the thirties https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U5PpCCfhBhY
Oh! We’re having a heatwave, a tropical heatwave
The temperature’s rising, it isn’t surprising,
She certainly can the can-can
She started a heatwave by letting her seat wave,
In such a way that the customers say
That she certainly can can-can