The heat…..

I sit and look at the thermostat at 3am, it looks back at me, telling me that it is 80 degrees in my house.  The air conditioner unit is out, something completely and totally out of my control and it still has the ability to make me feel like the biggest loser and failure as a father and provider for my family. 

Why?  Why something, so completely out of my control have such a hold on me?  Simple: Pride.  This is my family, my complete family as this is my weekend to have my son.  So I have an 8, 3, and 1 year old, in a house, with no air conditioning except for two window units I was able to borrow.  Yes, the repair man has already been called and yes I left a message, but still, doesn’t help resolve my self loathing.

See, what you don’t know yet, is that this makes #3 for the air conditioning  to not function as advertised during this summer alone!  We started with being out of freon/coolant, which is fine, we purchase this house as half finished and knew ahead of time that there would be unknown problems the first few years, as we’re unaware of the comings and goings of the property before we moved in.  Problem is, after dropping a few hundred to recharge the unit, it failed again within the week, due to what was described as a crack in the coil.  So, after checking on warranties and such, and being patient for nearly a month, AND dropping over 5 on getting the new unit in, we were set, good to go!  New unit in that works great, electric bill going down with a more efficient unit, everything seems to be going up, then BAM, the new unit shows signs of running low on coolant.  Well that can’t be right can it?  It just froze over for some other reason, right?  Sure!  So, as I left work, being the last one out, I turned the unit off, giving it a rest.  Its been in the low 90s, with rain everyday, so my plan was to come home that evening, after letting the unit rest and defrost, kick it on again and in about an hour or so, be sitting in my nice cool house again. 

Well that was nearly 8 hours ago, and we sit at 80.  Obviously the coolant has found another area to leak its way out, or we have other problems, I will not know until later on in the day, but regardless, I sit here, knowing my family is hot, and it frustrates me beyond understanding.  Something, completely out of my control, has made me feel like I’ve let everyone down and disappointed them all.

Oh well, just chalk it up to another day as the irredeemable dad I suppose