hot child in the city

After arriving home very late on Wednesday night I was delighted (with sarcasm) to feel the hot air of a broken air conditioner greet me once again at my door.

My parents were coming on Friday morning – so I bought new fuses (again) on Thursday after work and installed them. My prayers would not be answered – and the cool mountain breeze did not flow freely through my condo. For those not in the west, Los Angeles is in the midst of a heat wave – with temperatures in the San Fernando Valley soaring above 110 in the day and 90 at night. Thursday night I mustered a few brutal hours of sleep with my ceiling fan and floor fan on full blast. According to the hallway thermostat the temperature varied between 93 and 97 degrees all night.

The earliest appointment I could get was between 3 and 6pm the next day – and I was warned “he’ll probably be late.” I had spoken with my mother about their trip on Wednesday afternoon. She had joked “your AC is working, right?” I had the unenviable task of explaining to them as we drove out of Bob Hope Airport that they would not be able to “cool off” at my condo. My father, honorable gung-ho Mr Fixit to the end wanted to see if he could fix it. It may have been something as simple as spraying WD-40 on the fan. It wasn’t.

So, there we were; my parents and I, barely breathing in the near 100 degree heat inside my condo. We took a breather for lunch and went to the Argentinian restaurant that I’ve been frequenting with co-workers a lot. We then went shopping for portable AC units (I’d seen one at Cindy’s apartment once) to discover that they were sold out. Everywhere. We went back to my condo to wait it out. At 5pm we were reduced to waiting in the lobby because it was at least ten degrees cooler than my place.

At 5:30 the AC man arrived. He had a thick Russian accent which made him a little hard to understand (this would be to his benefit later).

After going to my place- being flabbergasted at how “sophisticated” my thermostat was and asking for a drink we headed up to the roof. In under sixty seconds he convinced himself it was “the fan, you need new fan.” I asked him how much – “six hundred.” I looked at him incredulously. He then seemed to start berating me for not telling him I needed a fan before so they could have brought it – because now he’ll have to come back with it tomorrow. My father and I just looked at each other with our mouths open for a bit… was this guy blaming ME for not knowing what needed fixed? Furthermore – how did he know right away it was the $600 fan? My father interjected and asked him about the solenoid. Earlier in the morning my father had discovered through investigation that the solenoid unit that turns on the fan wasn’t working properly. Now I was being told I either buy a $600 fan or a new $3,000 AC unit. It was hot up there – but not hot enough to make a $3,000 decision in 30 seconds with nothing to go on but “Art’s” hunch.

Art looked at us, then the machine, then us…. then the machine and realized we weren’t going to be fooled that easily. He then started his own investigating. After five minutes of testing wires and connections he said he thought it might be the capacitor unit and that he (holy coincidence batman!) had one exactly like mine in his truck. Ten minutes later with a new capacitor in place, the cold air finally started flowing again. We went from $3,000 – to $600 – to $300.
After I paid Art we decided to eat again. I took them to Nipa Hut for some quick Philippines cuisine. Later we would finish off the night by making mom eat her first churro at the Frutal a few blocks away. My condo still didn’t fully cool down (into the 70s) until early Saturday morning.