hero for a day

My hero for today is a guy named Mitch.

We lost our air conditioning yesterday while we were out watching Dark Knight. It's been in the mid 80's F in the house since we got home. I made some calls last night and then more this morning, looking for someone to come defend us from the Heat Miser.

Yeah, I'm a wimp.

I have in-laws in Arizona who would laugh at me like we do when they tell us it's getting cold there, when it's still above 50°F there and it's in the single digits here. But I start wilting at about 80°F. I got severely overheated as a tween during a visit to Phoenix, AZ in the summer, in a car without air conditioning. If I'm never that sick again it will be too soon. But more to the point of this post, I haven't tolerated heat well since.

Heat doesn't just make me tired or cranky. It can knock me flat. I once walked out of an over-air-conditioned building into a So. Cal. 90°F day and the transition hit me with tunnel vision and dropped me straight onto my butt on the ground in a matter of minutes.

So after being told by several AC repair companies that they couldn't get anyone out to us to do a repair for three days or more (though they could sure get someone to come give us an estimate on a new unit today or tomorrow) I found a locally based company called Pronto that sent someone out an hour after my call. That someone was a nice fellow named Mitch who found the problem and fixed our AC unit in just a few minutes, despite getting stung by an angry paper wasp from one of two nests that were hidden in our AC enclosure. (More of these wasps were nesting in a new spot.)

So, Mitch from Pronto is my hero for the day. He defeated the dreaded Heat Miser and restored our cooling (it's still 82° in here but cooling, finally), was attacked by unhappy stinging insects, and the rest of his day will be spent in houses that are too hot, or outside in the sun and heat, and yet he was as pleasant as can be.

After being hot for the previous 20 hours, and then hotter outside in the sun while Mitch finished up the repairs - wimp that I am - as soon as Mitch left I came inside and nearly fainted. I went from hot but fine to full blown pre-migraine aura, sweating hard, and headache and dizzy in just a minute or two. My mister was here, so he quickly got me some (more) water and a cold pack from the freezer.

Did I mention I'm a wimp?

I'm feeling much better after an hour of laying down with the cold pack, though I'm running a low fever and the headache is still throbbing in the left side of my head. More water, some tylenol, and parking myself right next to the AC vent are in order. The cats are all flopped and snoring. The ratties are asleep. And I'm going to log off the computer and rustle up that ice pack again. I'll make up the missed work hours later in the week.

Oh, but before I forget - I mentioned a while back in another post that we knitters and crocheters will put a cozy on just about anything. Well, this item falls more into the sweaters for unexpected recipients category than a cozy, but I think it deserves some applause. Serious points for creativity and style. I'd've posted the photo here, but Squiddles has the blogging feature on the photo disabled.