Sunday 5 May 2013

I aspire to be a redneck Eh-hole

Once again it's that time of year when I really should be thinking about purchasing an air conditioner, but instead am looking at hot temperatures like a personal insult and challenge from Mother Nature. Last summer it was hotter than satan's asshole (temperature unverified, but it's fair to assume the devil's rectum would be pretty fucking warm) and my 4th floor apartment was a hellish sweatbox, so I swore that this would be the year I finally caved and bought an AC so Spielberg and I would not be reduced to taking turns trying to crawl into the freezer to escape the heat. I figured since it's only the beginning of May, I had at least another month or so until it got hot and stuffy enough in the apartment to bitch and moan and start a bunch of redneck DIY heat-busting projects until I got pissed off that none of them worked well enough and broke down and bought an AC. Nope. The bitching starts now. So perhaps I should get rednecking it up and get that out of the way to justify spending a couple hundred bucks when the DIY shit goes inevitably wrong.

Top 3 Redneck DIY ideas to keep cool in warm weather:

1) Tinfoil window treatments
Pros: Cheap, easy and only requires a couple rolls of tinfoil and tape. Shiny and futuristic-looking home decor. Completely blocks out all light (especially when you plaster all the edges with black electrical tape) and gives your bedroom a lovely cave-like quality

Cons: Looks like a growshow from the outside, leading to an urge to hang a sign outside your window stating "This is NOT a marijuana grow operation...I'm trying to keep the heat out because it's fucking HOT. Stop judging me, motherfuckers". Tinfoiling your windows is apparently against strata council rules in my building (probably because of the whole growshow-resemblance thing) and I'm assuming I'm on some kind of window-watchlist list because of last summer's TinfoilGate. Also, electrical tape melts when it's on a burning-hot tinfoiled window for 3 months and scraping it off is a giant pain in the ass

Verdict: Would totally do this today, but won't because I prefer not to get evicted

2) Wet sheets/icepacks/fan combo
Pros I have 6 fans, lots of sheets and unlimited ice and water, so this is totally doable. Great at night because I have a hard time sleeping unless my bedroom is the same temperature as a freezer and I can see my breath in the air it's so fucking cold. And I haven't even hit menopause yet

Cons: Too labour intensive because the water sprayer runs out of water, icepacks melt and fans set to jet engine speed dry everything out, and getting up to replenish ice, water and redampen sheets makes it into a stupid fucking ordeal

Verdict: Every summer this is my nighttime ritual. And every summer I swear I will not spend all next summer getting up at 1 in the morning for more ice/water. It's a vicious cycle

3) Redneck Air Conditioner:
A cooler/rubbermaid tub, a fan, a piece of pipe and  some frozen plastic water bottle and voila! Cool, cool air!
 Pros: Way cheaper than a store-bought AC. Supposedly easy to make. The satisfaction of feeling smug and clever as fuck for cooling it down redneck style

Cons: May be easy to make, but I am mentally disabled when it comes to anything remotely resembling a machine or any object that has to be put together. You know on pinterest all those cool diy things you see and then you try it and it's a catastrophic failure? That's sort of what I'm envisioning with this. If it's possible to fuck it up somehow, I will find a way. The cutting of the holes in the lid makes me nervous, due to several near-misses involving knives and/or saws, and water +electricity has some potential for an ER visit

Vedict: A DIY disaster waiting to happen. But maybe I can bribe Spielberg into doing it. I'm pretty sure he wouldn't miss a finger or be too bothered by an electrical shock if the tradeoff is a nice, cool apartment.

FYI: there are really no good swear words for the letter E. However, tomorrow is the letter F, which is ripe with  cursing potential

Word/phrase of the day:

Ex-hole: your asshole ex-husband, ex-boyfriend or just plain ex. a phrase used to refer to that person you used to date that you can't stand.

Ele-fucker: People who will push every elevator call button while waiting at a given landing in the hope of catching the first available ride. Invariably more than one car will stop at the same time, leaving those riders to wait the interminable ten to fifteen seconds it takes to resume their journey--often with a few seconds of eye contact with the offenders as icing on the cake.
 
Eh-hole:  Canadian asshole





10 comments:

  1. That tub thing looks promising, actually. I have central air, but it doesn't work all that well once it hits 90 degrees, so maybe I could supplement? I can't fathom that I would do it right, either, though. Probably electrocute my entire bedroom somehow. So frustrating, because I need it to be freezing to sleep, too!

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  2. That DIY air conditioner looks like house fire waiting to happen.

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  3. Growing up my parents had a window air conditioner in their bedroom. We hung sheets in the stairway to keep the air from escaping the upstairs. They were usually cartoon character sheets. Not sure if redneck or white trash ;)

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  4. I'm sort of sad that I own an air conditioner and can't try to DIY one. It's not just a way to cool your home, it's a conversation piece!

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  5. I love that Rubbermaid concoction. That's very Alton Brown!

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  6. Only Vampires put tinfoil on their windows. :)

    Is this the right time to tell you that we take Sundays off for the ABC's of swearing?

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  7. Eh-hole = Canadian Asshole! Love it! I'm from Brandon, Manitoba!

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  8. I love how you describe last year's heat! Too funny!

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  9. I HATE to be hot. I sleep with the window open while it's snowing. My bedroom is on the top floor of our house and it is always blazing hot. I'm gonna make me one of them there redneck air conditioners. My husband will not be happy. He's not a fan of duct tape and every redneck invention needs duct tape. Oklahoma chrome.

    Another solution - move to Snag.

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  10. I have vowed that this year, since our last major snowstorm was only last week (seriously- 6-14 inches of snow in May? What fresh hell is this?!?) I WILL NOT BITCH about hot weather this year. Let's see how long that lasts, but at the moment snow and cold is too fresh in my memory to take heat for granted.

    On a side note, we totally need to create at least two good swear words that start with E. It's like a mission.

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