The wheel. The automobile. The printing press. According to Encyclopedia Britannica, these are just a few of the greatest inventions of all time. Britannica’s list covers items that save lives (defibrillators), make our lives simpler (the wheelbarrow), and simply help us pass the time (crossword puzzles). If by some magic you were able to get the inventor of every invention on the list together in my house right now and have them vote on which invention was the most important, I suspect the results would be unanimous: Willis Haviland Carrier’s 1902 invention, air conditioning.<\/p>\n

Right before we were set to begin our vacation last week, our air conditioner died. Again. For those not keeping track, we have had our air conditioner repaired pretty much once a year over the past several years. The repairs are never costly enough to justify a new unit, so we continue to have it repaired. The blower motor has gone out twice, last year fuses had to be replaced, and earlier this month, the compressor locked up.<\/p>\n

I cannot personally verify that the compressor locked up — all I can tell you is, every time we turned on the air conditioner, the breaker blew. A guy came out, looked around for a minute, and told us our compressor was locked up. Maybe he was lying; I’d never know. By the look on my face, I’m sure he could tell I had no idea what he was talking about. I’ve seen that same face a hundred times, usually while trying to explain the inner workings of a computer, program or network to someone who neither understands nor cares to. Had our conversation taken place inside a cartoon, I would have had a giant question mark hanging over my head. He would have a dollar sign above his.<\/p>\n

Then came logistics. We couldn’t have the unit fixed while we were on vacation, so we decided to wait. We spent five days in southern Texas in the hot sun, and came home to a house that was even hotter. During the day the thermostat stayed between 80 and 85. Multiple trips to Wal-Mart were made for fans (before the ordeal was over there would be four set up around the house to circulate the hot air). We called our repairman on Thursday only to discover that they wouldn’t be able to perform repairs until Monday. <\/p>\n

So, for three days, we moped around the house, mostly in our underwear, trying not to melt. By the end of the ordeal, Susan, Mason and Morgan were all sleeping in Mason’s room with one fan in the window and another on Mason’s dresser. Not wishing to partake in that hellish slumber party, I stayed in my own bed. We ate out almost every meal those three days, enjoying the freon as much as the calories. Riding around town in a cold car never felt so good.<\/p>\n

Cue the repairmen, who fixed the problem as advertised. The good news of “it’s under waranty” was followed by “$550 for labor, please.” They get paid either way, I suppose. <\/p>\n

Our definition of “roughing it” has certainly changed over the years.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The wheel. The automobile. The printing press. According to Encyclopedia Britannica, these are just a few of the greatest inventions of all time. Britannica’s list covers items that save lives (defibrillators), make our lives simpler (the wheelbarrow), and simply help us pass the time (crossword puzzles). If by some magic you were able to get the inventor of every invention on the list together in my house right now and have them vote on which invention was the most important, I suspect the results would be unanimous: Willis Haviland Carrier’s 1902 invention, air conditioning. Right before we were set to… (read more)<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1082","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-main"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.robohara.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1082","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.robohara.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.robohara.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.robohara.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.robohara.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1082"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.robohara.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1082\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.robohara.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1082"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.robohara.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1082"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.robohara.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1082"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}