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Summertime and the living is easy

Category: Life

Published on Saturday, 19 June 2010 05:00

Written by Paul Roy

It was a hot day behind the dirty windshield today. But I do love summer. You get to drive around all day with the windows down, getting a tan on your left arm, feeling the wind in your hair; well if I had hair I would feel it anyway. Cranking up the radio, listening to whatever moves you.

On these hot summer days I like to listen to the oldies, especially if they play surfing music or car tunes, you know The Beach Boys, Jan and Dean. And I like it when I hear the Beatles, the old songs remind me of summers when we were kids, heading to the beach, tooling along in the old station wagon, a 65 Mercury, sky blue and white with those real plastic wood panels on the side. My sister and I would sit in the back seat, the pull up one which faced backwards. I learned a lot about the world by looking out that window. Maybe that is why I always know where I have been but never where I’m going. Hmm.

Anyway, I drove around today basking in the 90 degree heat, that was outside, inside it was maybe 100 or so, but like I said you have all that air rushing in, the radio up, life is good. When I have people in the truck with me on these hot days they look longingly at the a/​c controls and eventually they will ask me why I don’t have it on. So I give them this explanation:

You see, I am in and out of the truck all day long. I get out, load a car, get back in, then drive to where we are going and I then get back out of the truck and unload the car. When I am done I then get back in the truck and repeat the process. I may do this five, ten fifteen times a day. If I were to go form a truck with the air conditioning set at say 60 degrees, and go outside where the temperature is 90, that is a 30 degree differential. Then there is a reverse differential when I go from the heat to the cool. It has been scientifically proved that prolonged exposure to this forward and reverse differential in the temperature which is exposed to the body can cause serious physiological effects such as hallucinations, delusions and possible acute schizophrenia. Therefore, as I explain it to them, it is in my best anatomical interest to keep the a/​c off so I avoid the risk of any of the above mentioned diagnostical conditions.

When I am done, if they are still awake they will look at me and say, “It’s broken, isn’t it?”

Yup, been that way for two years now.