For only the second, or maybe the third time this year we left the air conditioning on when we went to bed last night because some kind of freak weather phenomenon has cranked the humidity up to roughly twelve million percent. To be entirely accurate, I believe the weatherman was reporting something a bit less; maybe 11,578,992%. I dunno. Go look it up yourself.

Humidity as high as that makes it impossible to sleep, even if we crank up the ceiling fan all the way, tear all the covers off the bed and sleep in our underpants like twelve-year-olds. Since going to bed to not sleep would have been pointless, the air conditioning stayed on.

The problem with leaving the air conditioning on all night is setting the thermostat at just the right temperature. Too low and I wake up shivering, have to dig out and set of flannel pajamas and throw a quilt on my side of the bed to feel normal again. It might as well be winter. Winter is long enough without adding to it.

If I set the thermostat just a degree too high, though, I get to experience something like life after death when the house has cooled off enough that the air conditioning begins to cycle on and off. Eventually the “off” part of the cycle drags on long enough that the air in the house becomes stuffy-hot, and after a couple cycles of that I wake up, usually around four-thirty in the morning, too late to get any more real sleep, feeling unpleasantly like I’ve just been cremated.

I would just add that My Darling B is perfectly all right with the “too cold” setting. We are that married couple that is mismatched for temperature: I feel warm only when temps are above the mid-70s, while she can wear shorts and t-shirts until it gets into the low sixties, and I burrow under the bedcovers in all but the hottest weather, while she throws off all but the sheets in April and doesn’t cover up again until October.