Not Cool

The third floor of the house was trying to kill them.

That wasn't technically true, but in July it was accurate enough.

The house had been built in 1897, back when insulation was apparently more of a suggestion. The third floor was a remodeled attic with vaulted ceilings, old farmhouse character and enough charm to make Dudley and Betty love sleeping up there.

It also got unbelievably hot.

Heat rose through the house and collected under the roof as though it had been invited. By late afternoon, the bedroom could feel less like a bedroom and more like something designed to finish pottery.

Their wall air conditioner had been there for years. Fifteen, maybe more.

It no longer conditioned air.

It made noise.

The portable unit they had bought a couple of years earlier had helped for a while, but it was giving up too.

Eventually Dudley and Betty surrendered and moved downstairs to the guest rooms.

Betty wanted her bedroom back.

She had also done research.

"There's this thing."

Dudley waited.

"It goes by the wall."

"What kind of thing?"

"I don't know."

"An air conditioner?"

"Yes."

Dudley waited again.

"Sort of."

"What does sort of mean?"

"It's this thing you put by the wall and it makes everything cold."

"Does it go through the wall?"

"I don't know."

"Does it hang on the wall?"

"Maybe."

"Does it sit on the floor?"

"I don't remember."

"Does it have a hose?"

Betty looked at him.

"I want it cold."

"That's not really a specification."

"It's my specification."

This was the beginning of several days of research. Dudley looked at portable air conditioners. They already had one of those. He looked at mini-splits. He looked at PTAC units. He looked at through-wall units, window units, sleeve dimensions, BTUs, voltage, amperage, noise ratings and efficiency.

He learned what CEER meant.

Betty had not asked him to learn what CEER meant.

Every so often, Dudley called her over.

"Is this what you saw?"

"Maybe."

"What about this?"

"No."

"This?"

"That looks like it."

"That's a mini-split."

"Okay."

"But you said it went by the wall."

"It does go by the wall."

"It mounts on the wall."

"Fine."

"That's different."

"To you."

Dudley stared at her.

Betty stared back.

"What exactly are you trying to do?" she asked.

"I'm trying to figure out what you saw."

"I don't care what I saw. I want to sleep upstairs without sweating."

Dudley knew that. He just kept skipping past it.

Somewhere along the way, the problem had changed from How do we cool the bedroom? to What exactly did Betty see on the Internet? Those were not the same problem.

Dudley continued anyway.

Finally, after exhausting most of the HVAC industry, he called Ray.

"Dad, I've got an air-conditioning problem."

"What do you have now?"

"A wall air conditioner."

"Does it work?"

"No."

There was a pause.

"Does the hole work?"

"The hole?"

"The hole in the wall."

"Yes."

"Does the electricity work?"

"Yes."

"So buy another air conditioner."

From somewhere nearby, Betty said something Dudley could hear perfectly well.

"That's what I said."

Dudley looked at the wall.

There it was. A wall air conditioner. In a sleeve. Already wired. Already framed. Already occupying a perfectly useful hole in the house.

He measured it. Then measured it again, because this was still Dudley. The opening was standard enough. The electrical service was already there. They did not need a mini-split, a portable unit, a contractor or a new hole in a 129-year-old farmhouse. They needed an air conditioner that fit the existing sleeve.

Betty had been describing it all along. Not especially well. But she had been describing it.

Dudley found one for about six hundred dollars.

Then he read the features.

"It has Wi-Fi."

"No."

"You can control it from your phone."

"No."

"You can set schedules."

"No."

"It can send notifications."

Betty looked at him.

"I don't want my air conditioner sending me notifications."

Dudley scrolled farther down.

"I want it to make cold air."

"Yes."

"And turn on and off."

"Yes."

"That's it?"

"That's what air conditioners do."

Apparently technology had improved air conditioning to the point where the air conditioner now needed a relationship with them. Betty wanted none of it. She had enough passwords.

They found a unit that fit the sleeve and did not seem particularly interested in becoming part of the family.

There was one remaining problem.

It weighed about eighty pounds.

Twenty years earlier, Dudley would have picked it up without much thought. At fifty-six, both he and Betty looked at the box differently.

"You're not hurting your back."

"I'm not going to hurt my back."

"That's exactly what people say right before they hurt their back."

"It's eighty pounds."

"You're fifty-six."

Dudley considered pointing out that Betty was also fifty-six.

He decided the project already contained enough risk.

They discussed asking for help.

Then they looked at the stairs, the box and each other.

"We can do this."

"Slowly."

"Very slowly."

"Nobody is going to the emergency room."

"Agreed."

"Or traction."

"Is traction still a thing?"

"Don't find out."

They carried the new unit upstairs carefully, with far more communication than had probably accompanied the construction of the original house.

When the old air conditioner came out, they discovered another issue. There was now a large rectangular hole in the side of the house.

Borris appeared almost immediately.

"No."

Jingo arrived behind him.

"No."

Both cats stared at the opening.

For animals that spent most of their lives demanding to be let into rooms they had just left, an unexpected portal to the outside world presented extraordinary possibilities.

For several minutes, replacing the air conditioner became secondary to border security.

"Get Borris."

"I have Jingo."

"Borris is moving."

"I can see that."

Eventually the cats were relocated and the bedroom door was closed.

The new unit slid into the existing sleeve. It fit. No wall modification. No contractor. No new electrical work. No mini-split. About thirty minutes after they started, Dudley turned it on.

Cold air came out.

Real cold air.

Betty stood in front of it.

"That's better."

Dudley looked at the air conditioner.

Then at the sleeve.

Then at Betty.

She had been right.

This was an important moment for Betty.

Betty enjoyed being right.

Not obnoxiously.

Just thoroughly.

Dudley knew the look.

He had seen it before.

He would see it again.

They added shades to help keep the afternoon sun out.

That was it.

Six hundred dollars, some shades and half an hour of work.

No app.

No login.

No software update.

No subscription.

That night they moved back upstairs.

The room was cool.

The old farmhouse creaked the way old farmhouses did. The air conditioner hummed quietly in the wall.

Borris settled near Dudley's feet.

Jingo curled up near Betty.

Everybody was back where they belonged.

Betty closed her eyes.

"I told you."

Dudley stared at the ceiling.

"Technically, I found the air conditioner."

Betty turned her head.

"No."

Dudley considered making his case. There had been research. Measurements. Voltage. Sleeve dimensions. A fairly sophisticated understanding of several competing cooling technologies. He decided against it.

"Good night, Betty."

"Good night, Dudley."

The air conditioner kept humming.

No password required.