Goodnight...Sleep (Air)Tight

by Cathy

Ahhh...summertime. We Chicagoans wait nine months before summer births itself to us in the truest sense of the word. I've enjoyed the cooler than scorching temps this summer had to offer but seeing as the heat and humidity are raging this week, I'm encountering the dreaded domestic conflict that comes with turning on the A/C.

What's the problem with doing what every other warm-blooded human does when the heat and humidity reach 100%, you ask? The fact that my husband prefers to sleep in a tomb. In fact he prefers to live in a tomb. When he's home alone, the lights are never on, the windows are never open, the air is stifling and he's couch-hunched in the dark living room covered in a blanket sipping on tea. My teenager is exactly the same way, I am coming to discover recently. I'm sorry but I was not made to live and sleep in a Rubbermaid container of a house.

Bedtime in summer has come to be one of the biggest points of contention in my relationship. Who knew that once the bedtime struggles with the kids ended, I'd have THIS bedtime struggle to contend with? Since the hubby refuses the turning on of the A/C unless it's 100% humidity, 0% wind and temps in the 90s at midnight, I have to live with having the windows open. He lays there wrapped in a down comforter and I, parched tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth, an ocean building between my boobs (or as I like to refer to it, "A River Runs Through Them") literally basting in bed, sweat slowly building an outline of my body around me on the sheets.

I throw my covers over on top of him, zombie walk my way to the thermostat and when the click of the air kicks in, the hubby spurts out some tongue clicking of his own and robotically reaches for the down comforter - yes, that still sits at the end of our bed in the midst of summer - and envelopes himself in it like a bear hunkering down for the winter.

I've spent countless summer nights sleepwalking my way back and forth from the thermostat lest I cause anyone in the house to catch their "death of a cold", always concerned about turning the dial to juuuuusssttt the right temperature where it kicks in periodically but not toooooo often. I've awoken after those mornings from my half-assed sleep looking like a slicked up pufferfish.

The other day my girls and I got into my mother-in-law's car and the air was turned up to "freezer" on the dial. Even I thought it was a smidgen chilly. They mouthed to me from the backseat that "it's freezing in here!" and hugged themselves into the embryo position, teeth chattering. I, on the other hand, was sprawled out in the front seat enjoying the blast of cool air all while wondering how my husband managed to grow up in a house where his mother enjoyed (gasp!) turning on the A/C. I looked over at my mother-in-law knowingly and thought, "She gets it. She's normal!" Then I promptly decided that age and A/C levels are in direct proportion to each other; the older you get, the higher the A/C gets cranked.

And you know what that means....it will all be tomb much for husband. That's when I'll tell him to go sleep at his mom's house.