Heat wave

Our down coats are still on the hooks and, all of a sudden, it's 96 degrees. So begins our annual ritual of dragging the air conditioners out of the basement, hauling them up three or four flights of stairs, and installing them in the sweltering heat as quickly as we can. Next year, we'll be proactive. We'll bring them out well in advance and install them at our leisure, one at a time, over a series of late-spring evenings. We won't need to mop up the brown water that dribbles from their little back-spouts because we'll have drained them thoroughly before they were put away. Eager to be helpful, the children will keep themselves quietly amused for the duration of the process. We'll place the ACs in the windows carefully and fuss with them until they fit properly. And we won't need a mountain of rags and face cloths to stuff into the gaps between the units and the window mouldings because, next year, when we pull out the sidefins they'll flutter perfectly into place, forming hermetic seals that won't be broken until the cool of October.