I finally decided to break down and buy an air conditioner for the room I am staying in at my sister’s home. I was hesitant about the purchase because  I don’t have much discretionary income these days, there probably will only be two weeks of hot weather here, and we already had one of them. So I went to the store with the intention of buying the cheapest one. And that’s exactly what I did.

I decided to install the thing that day and couldn’t wait for evening to do it, because the window would have to be open and I didn’t want to let those mosquitoes and other flying things in to the house! But of course that now meant that I’d be installing it in the heat of the day. Lovely.

I unpacked the air conditioner, and as is my custom, took out the directions and read them. The first direction is “use this appliance only for its intended purpose as described in this Owner’s Manual.” OK, so now I’m thinking “what else would you use it for?” A book shelf? Right away I knew the instructions were going to be a challenge for both my patience and my intellect.

The next instruction that came to my attention: “Do not, under any circumstances, cut or remove the third (ground) prong from the power cord.” Now, really, who would do such a thing???

I moved on and read “skill level—- installation of this appliance requires basic mechanical skills.” No problem with that one, I’m pretty good with mechanical stuff. This should be a breeze (pardon the pun).

“Completion time —- 1 hour.” One hour? I’m thinking “how can this take one hour? All you have to do is stick it in the window for Pete’s Sake! How could it possibly take more than 30 minutes?”

Next: “We highly recommend that two people install this product.” Well, they had me there. Everybody I knew to call was busy, so I was on my own. I wasn’t daunted in the least by that recommendation. I’ve done a lot of things in my life. Surely putting in an air conditioner shouldn’t be that difficult. No problem.

The first problem I encountered was when I had to attach the mounting rail. I tried to figure out the diagram and screw the darn rail onto the top of the conditioner. After two screws, I realized I used the wrong ones from the included package, and had to take it apart and re-do it.

Attaching the accordion panels was another problem. I couldn’t figure out how to get the darn accordion things to stay attached to the conditioner. After 15 minutes I finally discovered that I had to take a part off of the conditioner and slip the accordion panel into it. This was not made clear in those wonderful directions!

Finally everything was ready and now I was supposed to “prepare the window.” First I had to figure out how to get the screen out of the window. My sister’s home has those Anderson windows and I tried every which way possible, but could not get that darn screen out by itself! I was sweating bullets now, and cursing like a sailor on a three day binge.

After about 40 minutes of struggling with the screen, I finally called my brother-in-law, who was on his way to work. I told him my dilemma and he gave me specific instructions as to how to get the screen out. He kept saying to me “you have to be ready because when you push on the window, it will come out and you have to catch it. But don’t worry if it breaks, it’s only glass.” (I do have a sweet brother-in-law).

Ten minutes later I called him again. I still couldn’t figure out what he was telling me to do. Step by step we went through his instructions and I kept him on the phone until I shouted, “the window’s coming out!” Now I understood what he meant. The storm windows and screen are all one unit. In order to take the screen out, I had to take all 3 windows out as well. But I didn’t understand that until the very second those windows and screen started to fall out towards the street! I grabbed that sucker with all of my might and was able to slowly lower it down to the ground without any glass breaking!

Phew. Now I was really sweating but happy that I got the screen out. I lifted the air conditioner into the window (after struggling to get it over the bed post that was in the way) and secured it in it’s place as directed. I’m still not sure if it is at the proper angle (you know, you have to angle air conditioners down so that the water from all that condensation runs off the back and not towards the house). But alas, my mission was accomplished.

Total installation time: over two hours.

I was so drained physically and emotionally after the installation that I cranked that baby up to full blast and fell spread-eagled onto the bed, shoes and all. I fell asleep like that and when I awoke I was almost frozen to the bed. All of that sweat had turned to icicles in places on my body that I won’t even blog about.

So last night was my first night of sleeping in the cool and I couldn’t get to sleep because of the noise from the air conditioner! But, I will get used to that. I keep telling myself that it’s only for a couple of weeks.

Tonight I expect a peaceful sleep in the fresh, cool, and pollen-free air.

Tomorrow morning I go for a mammogram. I’ll bet you can’t wait for THAT blog!