Last night i turned my PC on after being away from home for about an hour or two. With the window open and a fan going full pelt the temperature in my room rose to around 90 degrees fahrenheit (around 30 degrees c i think).
Getting to sleep was tricky even when it had been off for over an hour.
This happens frequently in summer due to my PC or other PC's being on and working from home some days.
SOOO
I head to the trusty internet to provide me with prices of AC units. Ones for the home. Ones with a hose you can dangle out a window and 'seal' with some carefully places towels. None of this fancy crap involving drilling and whatnot. Just a quick easy and relatively cheap way of cooling down a room that makes work unbearably hot at times. Im fully aware they probably kill the environment and baby seals will die if i bought one but tbh i dont care. Im hot and i dont give a shit about what stuff it pumps out of its pipe into the atmosphere (although i have a feeling its just water).
I head to Comet and find various ones on offer with Kilowatt this and BTU that. Seemingly the more of the number the better so i weigh up my options and head to comet. However whilst at the junction for B&Q i think 'may as well take a gander'
I pull off and head into the store. I walk up and down thinking 'where in the **** are the AC units'. I ask a woman and she points me to the end of the aisle im standing on and goes 'er there'.
Seemingly the heat has made me go blind
On the box is "14,000 BTU - LARGE ROOM."
Im thinking thats about 3000 more BTUs than comet offer......
THREE THOUSAND MORE. I ask what the price is and the woman gives me another look of 'are you really stupid or something?' and points to the sign above them saying £300 in brightly coloured lettering in size 432font.
the same price as the one in comet!
I thank her and go grab a flat loading trolley. I can't pass up an offer of these proportions.
I always imagined AC units to be fairly hefty size wise and a bit heavy. I grabbed one of them and slid it to the end of the little bit of wood they all sat on and tried to lift it. It couldnt be lifted easily. I put this down to the awkward shape of the box and thought 'ill just let it fall gently onto the flatbed and then move it around when its on there' which is what i did.
I went to pay and after about 4 people in the queue just staring at it for the entire duration i was there finally got out of the place.
Walked to the car and opened the boot.
I dont know about you guys and girls but im pretty shit on bootspace and putting things in said boot. The opening for the boot is approximately a foot maybe more above the ground. I think 'no problem for superman like me' and do a tim taylor style grunt which can be heard briefly
here
I get my arms underneath and around the box and bend knees as you are supposed to and lift. Nothing happens. Im thinking pffft try harder. So do and get it up. and onto the boot lid....except its the wrong way round because its so awkwardly large. Im now left there thinking 'shit'.... I get it back down onto the flatbed thing and move it around to the passenger door with the idea of sliding it into the backseat. No joy. Its too wide and the door wont open enough.
Back to the boot. Several passers by including what some (read:all) would consider a MILF (
phwoar) try and help me. A 87 year old man and his wife who i presume was called Agnes or Mildred help me up with it and the MILF does her bit on the end. We get it up. Itll fit! Except it wont because the ****ing angle is all wrong.
We give up and get it back onto the flatbed. The old man says sorry and i say thanks. He leaves. The MILF says 'if i had brought my convertible you coudlve driven with me back to your house and done it that way' with a twinkle in her eye.
Im not sure if shes coming onto me or not, although im fairly sure she is as shes hanging around a lot longer than the old dude did even after its fairly obvious it wont fit and now shes offering to give me a ride back to my place in her soft top. (SCORE). However, I say thanks very much and after standing around for a bit longer with her trying to think of another way to get it home decided to head back into the store after thainking her for her help and view of clevage.
(shouldve had more sex with her in the back of my car i know)
I goto the helpdesk and ask the girl to get me someone who can help. Im greeted with a fairly chubby dude. My experience of fat men who work in places where heavy lifting is required is usually that although they are fat, they can lift 10x their own body mass without breaking a sweat. This guy was no different. He sliced open the packaging at my request and we got the ****er into the boot and all the various bits and bobs into the back. I thank him and im on my merry way back to the house still thinking about how id just missed out on MILF sex but nm.
I get home just as my brother gets back from an A-level exam. I forget to even ask him how it went and inform him hes about to help me get this thing up a flight of stairs. He doesnt exactly 'willingly' oblige but does help. We get it inside. The thing is huge. I mean its monsterously big. Much bigger than i even realised when putting it in the boot. It could cool about 10 houses not just one.
As i currently live with my parents this proves a problem. Mum is home. Mum has a thing about how 'work has taken over the house' as im here a lot of the time and my desk is rather filled with things like laptops and monitors etc etc.
She doesnt greet the AC unit well. 'Its too big. Why did you have to get an industrial one? This isnt an office' blah blah blah blah.
I ignore her complaints as i have a single goal.
I have not spent an hour of my time and lost half my body weight in sweat to stop now. I have to win for the sake of all men.
The AC unit
WILL be going to the top of the stairs and into the hall and it
will be working and cooling me before the day is out so help me god.
We try carrying it but due to the angle of the staircase theres no way of doing it without one person taking 99% of the weight. So i have the ace idea of sliding it up. This works surprisingly well and although it takes about 15minutes we get it to the top and there was much celebration and halleljuias. Id imagine this is what it felt like after God had finished creating the heavens and the earth. Although i doubt he was sweaty at the end of it.
I stand it upright for the first time.
It looks absurd. Its about half my height and fairly wide. Im thinking 'shit'...Mum comes up and her previous reaction is amplifieid somewhat by a 'I am not having this in my house!' type thing. I plead with her. It fails.
I have won the battle but seemingly the War rages on.
As i fetch the rest of the stuff from the car weary and close to defeat she makes a sly call to dad who 'wants to talk to me'..
I am to take it back.
Ok
Fair enough.
It looks stupid and its huge. But ive done it. I got a 24 tonne AC unit back home and to the top of the stairs with only some minor back and hand injuries. Im a hero. A true hero.
I want to turn it on. Ive suffered. Ive been through pain and agony and ive missed out on MILF fun for this damn thing so i want to at least see it work.
I get a resolute 'no'. I grab the plug and she grabs the unit and refuses to budge telling me to take it back at once. Ive lost.
My mother is only 5'4. Shes quite small. I couldve just smacked her in the face and said 'NOT TODAY CHUMP!' and laughed in the way superheros do but i didnt. I have too much respect and sadly i wasnt brought up to smack my mother in hte face. If only i had been from a redneck family
My brother is taking a shower and refuses to help me take it down as now he realises how heavy it is (and i tricked him into helping before). So i just say 'FINE ILL TAKE IT BACK' and in a fit of stupidity decided im going to slide it down slowly back down the stairs on its side.
GREAT PLAN a little voice in my head cries.
I put it on its side and brace myself 3 stairs down for the initial 'oh shit this is heavy'.
However its really really really heavy. I take the weight and both my feet slide backwards down 3 steps before i regain control all the while thinking 'oh christ im going to die'. I had a vision as i was sliding backwards of the slide continuing all the way down until i was forced into a wall followed by the AC unit and then squashed into a small pancake and then in hospital with broken ribs and arms and the doctors laughing when they were told why i was going to be in a wheelchair the rest of my life on a resperatory machine.
Thankfully i regained my footing and grabbed the banister thing so held it and then slowly but surely slid it back down to ground level. Brother then decided to help and we carried it out to the car. Put it in the boot and i drove back to B&Q.
The guy who came out to get it from the back didnt say a word. He seemed pissed off for some reason. I thought 'maybe he knows its heavy or something' but he clearly didnt as i offered to help and he just grunted in a non tim allen style. I nearly laughed as he went to grab it. got it out and then all of a sudden his arms began violently shaking and he said 'er a little help please'. I helped him tho and got the refund.
The moral of this little (and im sure many of you will say tl;dr) story is that although it may seem really cool to get the biggest and best and most powerful. In all likelyhood when you get it home itll look shit. Itll have wasted 3 hours of your time. And you will have to take it back because a woman of some sorts, whether it be your wife, girlfriend or mother will stamp her feet and go 'not in my house/flat/1 bedroom studio'.
My room is currently 84.6 degrees Fahrenheit. It works out to around 29degrees C.