Over the years I have monitored the weather diligently through various mediums, beginning with the television, then the internet, and now via iPhone. If a heatwave is coming I know about it, and yet so many times I have waited until it was too late to buy a fan. I would wait until sweat was trickling down my back when exerting zero energy or until I had spent more than one sleepless night staring at the ceiling cursing the heat. I’m not sure what we do with our fans in Seattle but it seems the heat surprises us and we can’t recall where we have stored our fans or who we loaned them to. We have to go by new fans just to get through those few days of heat.
See, in Seattle very few people have air conditioning. If you go back and read through my weather posts you’ll see why. It rarely is hot enough to use a fan, let alone an air conditioner. (For example, it’s July 4th and still overcast, 59 degrees, and probably on the verge of raining.) There are, of course, those few days or weeks that, while we welcome summer with open arms, tend to make us remember why we don’t live south or east of here. In Seattle, the sun shines high and bright for long days. Houses and apartments bake all day long until the air temperature inside is higher than the air temperature outside. Without a fan, this leads to a sauna-esque setting throughout the entire living space. The nights are short and don’t cool much so until the weather’s “fever breaks,” well, life isn’t much fun.
Last year we had record heat. 104 degrees. In the 90s or higher for a week straight. My house was literally, (and I’m using the word literally correctly here,) 100 degrees. I slept on the floor of my kitchen in front a fan with the door open. I worked late every night to remain in the air conditioning; I tried making an air conditioner out of ice, a Styrofoam cooler, and a fan. I tried to buy a fan, or ten, but every store was sold out. It was awful.
Yesterday I made a preemptive strike, finally. I walked the fan aisle of Fred Meyer considering my choices. There were tower fans, small tower fans, dual window fans, rotating fans, turbo fans, and even fans with rain sensors. They were tempting but I had tried them before. I needed a fan that would move as much air as possible with a reasonable about of noise, for a reasonable price. My choice was clear. I didn’t need a fancy, new, circular, rotating, turbo charged fan. I just needed an old, square fan that pumps air through the room like water from a fire hose. I bought a classic box fan for 20 bucks and I may just go buy another.
Come on heat wave, I am ready for you this time! And fan, you and your soon-to-be-adopted brother are coming with me to Asheville!
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