Family Life

Finally some real summer weather. It’s the last day in July. It’s supposed to be the hottest month of the year, and today is the first properly hot day we’ve had. Debbie was feeling cheated out of her summer, but today she’s getting her money’s worth.

At work we’ve been testing a plastic molding line. This uses lots of electric heaters to turn millions of little beads into a wide ribbon of molten plastic. The ribbon goes into a die where it gets pressed into shape, and then into a cooling rack where big fans cool and solidify the plastic. In other words, we’re running a huge heater indoors. Right in the middle of summer. The air conditioning just can’t keep up.

So far we haven’t even bothered with the ac–we just open big roller doors at each end of the building. The weather has been cool all summer and so it’s pleasant inside. But the last few days it has started to get hot. And it’s windy. And we’ve hardly had any rain all summer, so it’s dry and dusty. I’ve been sitting at my computer at a table about halfway between the roller doors, getting the full benefit of the breeze and the dust. I have new contact lenses that I’m still not used to, that bother me at the best of times, and that are now getting filled with grit blown in from outside. My eyes hurt, I can hardly see for the tears, and it’s difficult to concentrate on work. Friday afternoon I’d had enough, so I went and shut one of the doors. Blessed relief! No more dust! But after five minutes I was boiling from the heat. After seven minutes somebody had gone and opened the door again. Definitely cooler, but dusty once more. I couldn’t bear it. How was I going to cope this week?

Today all the doors were closed and the air conditioning was making a valiant effort. It was hot inside, but I can deal with the heat. More importantly it wasn’t dusty, and I had no troubles with my eyes all day. It was an answer to a prayer I hadn’t even voiced. Since we’d gone through most of the summer with no ac, I asked the guy who maintains our ac units why now? He told me to go outside for a minute and then come back in. Hot as it was indoors, it was oh so much cooler than outside. Super extra hot weather has saved my sanity.

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