Dear E.,
I’ve about had it with air-cooling devices.
We are having a prolonged heat wave, so I’ve had to run the window air conditioner in my office around the clock to keep my room comfortable. My AC unit is cranky under normal circumstances. When it doesn’t get a break, it gets downright belligerent.
It started to just stop every once in a while, turning my office into an oven before it would kick back on. No amount of knob-turning, filter-checking, or “I can fix it” help from coworkers could get it to quit quitting.
So much for “belligerent.” By degrees we reached “diabolical.”
First came the noises. Small noises initially, such as a muffled flunk, flunk, flunk every 45 minutes. This evolved into a flunk, flunk, flunk, ka-BAM! every half hour. While the flunk, flunk, flunks remained muffled, the ka-BAMs went from the sound produced by a small firecracker to that made by a good-sized cannon. I would just settle back into editing an instructor’s course materials when a ka-BAM! would send me diving under my desk.
The change from frequent ka-BAMs to frequent ka-POOFs would, in some circles, be considered an improvement. Those same circles wouldn’t have all the facts. The first ka-POOF! was accompanied by a cloud of blue-gray smoke. That was somewhat alarming, so I was on my guard to see if it would happen again.
The second ka-POOF! enveloped me in a cloud of soot; the third sprayed the room with kitty litter; and the fourth (now we have reached “diabolical”) was a festive ka-POOF! of gold glitter.
Well, I’m no idiot. I know when a machine needs to be serviced. I called the campus maintenance department and asked them to look at my AC.
They came; they looked; they messed with knobs and filters; then they said, “Everything your unit is doing is quite normal, except for the glitter. We’ll have to take it into the shop to check that out.”
So, during the longest heat wave we’ve had in four years, I lost my air conditioner.
They brought me a tall pedestal fan to use. It was an oscillating fan, and with the window open and the fan running I didn’t sweat too much. I did start to sweat when it began making noises.
It started quietly at first—the cricket noise it made with each oscillation—barely detectable, really. I would be sitting there working, and the fan would oscillate to the left, then oscillate to the right, then oscillate to the left. Then it started making a kerrrrrrick, kerrrrrrick chirp with each pass. Every mature adult knows how to ignore oscillating fan noises, but the cricket impression was really good and grew louder and more distracting by the minute. Just when I was about ready to turn off and/or choke the fan, it changed noises.
Instead of a kerrrrrrick, kerrrrrrick, I started hearing a click with each oscillation. Finally, something was going my way—getting better instead of worse! The click never did get louder and was easy to ignore after all of the ka-BAMs, ka-POOFs,and kerrrrrricks. Until I heard an answering click from the windowsill.
A small bird on the ledge of the open window was mimicking the clicks from the fan. Every click from the fan brought a click from the bird. Just when I was wondering if this could possibly be a coincidence, the fan started to “click-click” with each oscillation. The bird click-clicked back. In no time at all it was a click-click here and a click-click there, here a click, there a click—need I go on?
At this point my boss called and asked if I could come down to his office for a few minutes. When I returned the fan was at the window, tilted down, cooling off the bird. Now, admittedly, the fan was on wheels, and vibrations could have caused it to move to the window, but stay with me on this.
The bird was luxuriating in the breeze from the fan. Every once in a while it would turn around to ruffle its tail feathers. With a click or a click-click it caused the speed or tilt of the fan to change. I was waiting for the bird to pull out a tiny chaise lounge, a glass of lemonade, and a good spy novel when the AC guys brought back my unit.
“Nothing unusual,” they said. “Every few months we get one that’s possessed. Father Fiendflicker is on call for that sort of thing. Can’t promise your unit’s as good as new, but we can promise no more glitter.”
The men didn’t pay any attention to the bird as they began to lift the air conditioner into the window opening. As the gap closed the bird emitted a rapid series of clicks. The fan, now off to the side, mimicked the whole sequence in fast-forward as the AC unit slid into place.
The head maintenance guy said, “Hafta check out this fan, boys, when we get it back to the shop. That clicking noise is for the birds.”
I’m convinced that, at the last minute, the bird and the fan made arrangements to meet in some seedy bar that admits both birds and UL-approved appliances.
More later,
– Lyle
Copyright © 2025 John Arthur Robinson
JOHN ARTHUR ROBINSON 