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6/01/2007
Friday Jun 1st, 2007
was a hot day. Not only was it hot, about 88 degrees, but the
humidity was high too. While I was sitting on the corner doing my
job as crossing guard in the afternoon, dripping wet with sweat, I
started thinking about air conditioners.
When I was a kid, we didn't have air conditioning.
They were too expensive to buy, and too expensive to operate, at least
for my family. I graduated from high school in 1988, and in the
summer of 1989, I started working at Jamesway in the Dutchess Mall in
Fishkill. One of the first things I bought was an air conditioner.
I couldn't sleep in the heat, really. I would pretty much lie
awake all night long whenever it got hot in the summer. It made
getting up for work in the morning very hard, so the air conditioner was
really a necessity for me. I don't remember exact prices now, but
my 5,000 BTU air conditioner cost me more than $200, even with my
employee discount.
I was very happy to have an air conditioner, and it did
a nice job. That machine lasted me for many years. When it
finally quit on me, I bought a new one, again around 5,000 BTU, but this
time only a bit over $100. My luck with that unit wasn't nearly as
good. It didn't do as good a job of cooling the room, and it only
lasted a couple of years. I replaced it with another 5,000 BTU
unit, this time a bit under $100 from Wal Mart in Fishkill. Right
from day one it was never really able to keep the room all that cool,
but it was better than nothing.
Toward the end of the summer of 2006, I was in Wal
Mart, and noticed a big stack of air conditioners in the center aisle.
When I looked more closely, they were 9,900 BTU units, and they were on
sale for $100. At that price, I grabbed two of them. I
managed to shoe horn them into my wall sleeves, and now have one in my
living room, and the other in my bedroom. What a difference an
extra 4,900 BTU's make. I now set the timer so that the air
conditioner comes on about two hours before I get home from work, and my
room is a chilly 63 degrees when I get home. No more tossing and
turning ,and sweating all night, what a wonderful thing. The
lesson learned here is that you should shop for air conditioners at the
end of the season. This spring, those same air conditioners are
selling for double what I paid for mine! |