Mama Needs Her Air Conditioning Kids!

When my husband, the Turk, and I first met I was addicted to freezing temperature AC like any good American. Why suffer with sweat rolling down my cleavage when climate control was at my fingertips as long as I was willing to fork over the dough for an outlandish electric bill? (Oh, and I was.) But months later when we moved to Turkey air conditioning was a far off dream. It was so far-off I would ask friends to describe the climate of their homes when we video-chatted and I could see they were not sweaty from the effort of merely sitting upright. I sat in a pool of sweat from April until October and learned to ignore the stench from my fellow commuters sharing my fate. Turkey’s heat sometimes reached over 115 degrees, but I hear purgatory is warm so I considered this a dress rehearsal.

In time, I learned how to adapt.  Like all the other good Turkish women in our building, I made dinner before 9AM to avoid heating up the house, spent evenings on the balcony; the only spot with the slightest air current and I learned that the 11:00 AM to 5:00 PM slot each day was best left for soap operas and trash TV. (And thanks to Netflix, I can still enjoy those trashy Turkish dramas in America.)

By the time we returned to America 3 years later, I had lost all ability to adapt to air conditioning. I was always freezing and the idea of taking a sweater with me to the food store in July was insane. We lived well with no AC, though we had few visitors because no one wanted to come to our house and sweat. It was a win/win.

Over the past ten years as we’ve gotten older and fatter our views shifted. By the time I was pregnant with Nugget, whose late summer due date had me swollen up like a balloon in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade, my love of AC returned. When we bought our first home in Indiana, the Turk was the one who wanted to crank the air 24/7 since he was now accustomed to working in an office with arctic temperatures, (No one loves air conditioning like Midwesterners.)

House hunting in Massachusetts quickly revealed that New Englanders and Hoosiers do not share the same feelings regarding the necessity of air conditioning. Few houses we looked at had AC and I surmised that was because it was so much cooler that it wasn’t necessary. I held that thought until a month after we moved in last summer and our cute Colonial turned into a pizza oven. Immediately we understood why there was a stack of window air conditioners in our garage. The Turk put the units in, complaining the entire time about how ugly they were and how they blocked his view. He was also 100% sure they would bust our electric bill. He was wrong, and they were out again by late August.

As far as I was concerned, two months of window air conditioning units was totally reasonable but a few weeks ago the Turk came up with an “idea.” If you are married to an engineer you know these “ideas” come regularly and are usually either deadly or costly or both.

“I think we need install central air.”

I took a deep breath of the cool June breeze blowing through our bedroom window and lovingly said, “Did you hit your damn head?”

“It is easier than put in and take out the window AC every year.”

“Yes, and it is also ridiculous since we only need it for like 2 months.”

“But look how much easier is?” He could see that he was losing me so he tried his next “idea.”  “Ok you not like that, how about we put klima in the rooms.” Klima, (that’s what they’re called in Turkey but I have no idea what they’re called anywhere else.)are wall mounted climate control units with both heat and AC. We were too poor to have one in Turkey but my all my in-laws did. Klima’s are old hat in Turkey but new technology here and the mother-in-law suite above our garage came fully equipped with a klima in every room giving the Turk the idea he needed.

The Turk must not have seen my epic eye roll because he kept going, “We get them, then I put them in.”

“Wait, you think you can install and wire these things?”

The Turk retorted with his standard, “Yes, why not?”

These are the moments I face way too frequently, stunned into silence by the ridiculousness of my husband’s proclamations but desperate to stop him. “Why not? Seriously? You can do HVAC now? Somehow because you are an engineer with YouTube access you are an HVAC specialist? You are insane.”

It should seem like that was the end of the discussion but it wasn’t. He began pricing units, taking measurements and watching installation videos. I had to act fast. Thankfully, the heat kicked in before he had a chance to fully develop his plan.

“Honey, it’s going to get hot next week. We need to put the window units in.” I prompted. “Guess we’ll have to put the klima on the back burner.”

My request seemed to get lost in translation though because by Monday, the Turk was back at work and the window units were still in the garage. The temperature was climbing and the entire family had spent the previous night in a state of perpetual hot flash. Four units needed hauled out of the garage and up to the house, then schlepped up the stairs and hefted into windows. It was no easy job but Mama was hot. Thanks to perimenopause I’m hauling around an extra 15 pounds and hormones that are on a perpetual rollercoaster. This was not the time to mess around. While the Turk was at work, I sent my offspring to their kid-pool and took things into my own hands. Thirty gallons of sweat, chaffed under-boobs, extensive bilingual profanity and two hours later, I had achieved greatness. The house was a climate-controlled paradise and I had kept my husband out of the HVAC game for at least another year.

As a the mother of boys and wife of a Turk still working to rid himself of his old country, sexists ways, I love to destroy gender norms. Though I couldn’t stand up straight for two days and I had a roadmap of bruises up my thighs, it was worth it for my boys to see Mom taking things into my own hands. I knew my work had paid off when Number 1, Nugget and I ascended the stairs and were met with a blast of cold air. As he has learned to do now, my darling 5 year-old sang my song of greatness, “Sisters, are doin’ it for ‘demselves Mom!” Damn right little buddy!

Your Word is…Biscuit

 

“Mom! I made it. I’m in the spelling bee!” Number 1 was barely off the bus when he broke the news.

“Awesome! I was in the 5th grade spelling bee too, back in the day.” I replied.

“How did you do?” He prodded.

“This isn’t about me. Tell me more about your bee.”

As we trodded up our ridiculously long driveway,  Number 1 proudly regaled me with the tale of how he brought orthographic fame to our family by securing one of the three spelling bee seats from his classroom. (Orthography-the conventional spelling system of a language. – Thanks Word-of-The-Day calendar.)

He was elated and I was in shock. My life has long been built around the mantra, “That’s why Jesus gave us spell check,” and his father is no orthographic star in either of his languages. (See that, I learned the word  so I need to use it a few times. It’s not like orthography is something I can throw out daily, though I will try.) I have no clue how the offspring of such a union could be a spelling champ but the kid has aced every spelling test for the past couple years so clearly, orthography is his jam. (Seriously, I like that word.)

A few days later he came home with a packet of words that would be used and instructions for parents to come watch. I arranged to leave my school and sneak over to his for the event and began to nag him about studying the words. “I will Mom, I will.” Five days later, two days before the epic spelling bee, he remembered to look over the word list.

“Quiz me Mom?” He requested and because I’m both an overbearing Turkish mother by training and a teacher, I was all over that like hot butter on a pancake. We made it through the first column on the A’s and it wasn’t going well. By the next column on the B’s it was getting ugly and the C’s were an epic disaster. “I don’t know what’s happening. Why can’t I spell?”  

I thought of possible explanations, alien abduction, brain sucking amoeba, a sudden and unexpected vengeance by his parental spelling genes, lots of things were possible. But I could sense his growing panic so I opted for pedestrian logic, “You might just be tired. Let’s work on it at breakfast.” Thankfully, he bought it.

At 6:00 a.m. while SportsCenter murmured in the background, we hit the list again.

“Physicist. Sheldon Cooper is a physicist.”

“P-y-s-i-c-i-s-t-s” He answered.

“Nope. Forgot the h.”

“Ugh!”

After about 4 more like that I saw the ship was sinking. There was no way he was going to master the packet of 300 words before the next day so I took a different approach, confidence building. “You know these, you’re just putting too much pressure on yourself.”

Reluctantly, he agreed. “Maybe you’re right Mom.”

I also thought it was time to share my 5th grade spelling bee tale of woe. “It was the spring of 1983 and I had a tragic, tragic mullet. I’d hoped to look like Joan Jett but I looked more like Joe Dirt.”

“Mom, what does this have to do with me?”

“Can it kid. We’re going in a time warp so ride along. I wore my best JC Penny jeans from their Pretty Pluss collection, polished my Earth Shoes and donned a brand new pink and mint green polo- collar with the collar popped, of course. I’d practiced my wordlist a million times and I was ready. I was going to bust that bee wide open. The stage facing a gym full of parents and the rest of Lincoln Middle School, was a bit unnerving but I was a winner. I sat on a metal folding chair in Row 2, poised on the edge of greatness. The first round was simple. The 30 of us on stage whizzed through round one words. Round 2 was equally easy and then it was my turn. I approached Mr. Renaud at the podium and prepared for my word. From behind his huge, early 80’s mustache he said, “Biscuit. Your word is biscuit.”

Easy-peasy. I loved me some biscuits fresh from the tube so I could nail this. “B-i-s-c-u-t, biscuit.”

“I’m sorry. That is incorrect.”

Hubba whaaaaaat? Wrong? I felt the redness fill my face as I took the walk of shame back to Row 2. Then I had to sit there, brooding in humiliation until Barbra Knowles took the title a full 700 rounds later. (Ok, maybe it was like 25 but it seemed like 700.)”

“Cool story Mom but what does this have to do with me?” My ingrate son asked.

“I’m just saying that no matter how hard you prepare it’s still luck of the draw. You might be completely ready but nerves take over and it’s done. But you know what? To this day I have never forgotten the word that did me in and I will always know how to spell biscuit.”

The next morning he woke up a nervous wreck and begged me not to come to the spelling bee. “Mom, if you come I’ll be even more nervous. Can we just call it good?”

Unknown to him I’d already arranged with another mom to have her take video in case I couldn’t get there so we were good. “Ok, but just remember, “Biscuit””

As I waved him away at the bus stop I again yelled, “BISCUIT!!!!” 

Unfortunately, I received a text during period 2 that his reign was over. My darling offspring had also gone out on round 2. “Scenery” had brought him down. As he got off the bus I was ready to cheer him up. I had made a pitcher of conciliatory lemonade and was prepared to bribe him with an offer to jump on the trampoline with him. (Yes, this big busted mother loves her son enough to risk 2 black eyes from jumping if it would cheer him up.)

As soon as he got off the bus I exclaimed, “Scenery is your biscuit!”

Looking over his shoulder to make sure no one had heard, he whined, “MOOOOOM!”

“I saw the video and I’m sorry buddy. But now you understand my story right?”

“Not really Mom, I was kinda glad I got out early. I was so nervous.”

I continued trying to validate his performance, “Maybe you didn’t hear the word right. It’s a tough word.”

“Nah.” He brushed me off. “I heard. I just screwed up.”

It was becoming clear I was more upset about this ordeal than he was and perhaps that was due to my painful ‘83 flashback. “We all have our biscuits and now you have your biscuit too.”

He looked at me. “Mom, I’m going to need you to stop saying that.”

“Saying what?” I asked.

“Anything with the words your and biscuit. I think it means something other than what you think it means.”

As I snorted in uncontrollable laughter I agreed. Maybe talk of biscuits was best left out of conversations with one’s tween son. But I will continue to hold it in my pocket for the next time he’s upset, “Remember son, we all have a biscuit.” or if he’s sassy in the presence of friends and needs a little embarrassment to keep him in check, “Son, how about you tell your friends about your biscuit?”

Because we all have our biscuits, what matters is how you handle it.