If I really had been menstruating as often as I played the “period card” in high school to get out of gym class, I would have hemorrhaged to death before I was old enough to vote.
I do exercise now, grudgingly. I don’t get a runner’s high or a second wind or any of that stuff that fanatics say you’ll get if you stick with it, but I do it because I’ve seen people younger than me living in my mother’s long-term care facility.
The real reason I avoid exercise is not really because of the exercise, per se, but because I hate to sweat. It’s just so icky.
That’s also why I prefer the Great Indoors in the summertime. People can reminisce all they want about the era when people sat on the front porch swing, visiting with their neighbors over a glass of lemonade. I bet most of them weren’t even born before everybody had central air.
My reminiscing of the ‘50s and ‘60s involves memories of the family sitting in a circle in the back yard in July and August, stringing bushels of green beans or silking dozens of ears of corn or peeling mountains of peaches, then going into the hot kitchen with nothing but a box fan, and canning 14,000 quarts of vegetables and fruit in a pressure cooker with steam shooting out the top.
Or, there was always going to church in itchy Sunday clothes, stuffed into rows of metal seats with only funeral home fans to keep you from passing out from heat stroke, to watch the preacher get all worked up and sweat big circles under his arms, and then sing 49 verses of “Just As I Am.”
Oh, yes, those were the good ole days.
And then there have been the 12 years-and-counting of want-to-tear-your-clothes-off hot flashes, courtesy of Mother Nature.
So when summer temperatures arrive, as they did today to the tune of 92 degrees, I don’t handle it well. Especially with a husband who insists that he’s cold when the thermostat is set below 80. Here’s our conversation – word for word – that we have every day, every summer:
Me: I’m hot. I’m turning the thermostat down.
Bob: It’s not hot in here. It’s just humid.
Me: I’m sweating! It’s running down my legs!
Bob: I can’t stand it when it’s too cold.
Me: You can put on a sweater! I can’t run around naked!
Bob: Don’t turn it down, Gail. The cold air bothers my sinuses, especially at night. It gives me nosebleeds.
Me: At 78 degrees?
Bob: You can’t go by that. It’s not accurate.
Me: I don’t care if it’s accurate or not – I’m hot! I can’t take this! I need my own house!
Bob: It’s just hysteresis.
Me: I’m not hysterical! I’m hot!
Bob: No, the thermostat has hysteresis. If it’s set on 78, the AC doesn’t turn off until it gets to 75, but it also doesn’t come on until it’s 80 or 81.
Me: Then let's get another thermostat.
Bob: Well, OK, but I want to get the right one. I need to find somebody to put it in who knows what they’re doing. I could do it myself if I had the time.
Me: So I have to wait until October when you retire to get a new thermostat? Along with all the other stuff you’ve been putting off until you retire for the past 26 years since we got married? Most of which you won’t be able to do now that you’ve got Parkinson’s?
Bob: No, I’ll take care of it before then, dear.
This, from a man who once left me at home with a broken air conditioner and two kids when I was EIGHT MONTHS PREGNANT to go to a weekend-long convention. Since Bob likes to be warm, I think it’s time to turn up the heat. On him.
I’ll just threaten to move to a hotel. That’s what got him to fix the air conditioner when I was pregnant.
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