Air

Sing a song of coolant, a windowful of sky,
BTU's a flowing, freon breezes nigh.
When the AC's going, the cats begin to sing
Now I can put my clothes back on, and dance before the king.

Oh Oysters come and walk with us along the briny beach. I hauled out the old air conditioner and slapped it in the window. Here, the complex charges an extra ten dollars each month for the summer use of one. Piled up college texts balance the machine so it's back end is just touching the window screen, not visible from the outside and then I tape plastic around the remaining side areas so they aren't open. I can't see spending $120 extra dollars a year for AC.

This machine is a hand me down about eleven years old. It has fake plastic wood on the front and still wheezes out cool air to the delight of the cats who are now flopped in front of it. I like it too. Lots. Some nights I will open the sofa bed and sleep in the living room for the sake of the cool air. Tomorrow I may break down and purchase a newer efficient model, and end up paying the extra ten bucks a month. But then, I would have Two air conditioners for rationalization of payments to the landlord. In my mind, that's winning.

Paying money for air, my relatives would have puppies. Just like they don't understand paying money for bottled water which is okay in a pinch, but I generally stick to tap H2O. I mean, this business of Fiji water. For god's sake, isn't that where atomic bombs were tested? You think that radiation has fizzled away in the past sixty-five years? Radiation that has a half life of what, a gabillion years? Your piddle could make a Geiger counter crackle like a Fourth of July warehouse fire from drinking it.

Our city is rumored to have pipes still made of wood for some of the older drains, lead continues to exist in pre-War homes and connections, and at this end of Lake Erie, we are facing every bit of chemistry dumped into the Great Lakes from Superior to the raw sewage run off a block away. Okay, so it's enough to make you crack open a cold one, but my skin does have a glossy sheen no cosmetic counter can produce, usually more often found on a 2008 Chevy.