It's hot, hot, hot.

Last week, summer arrived.

After weeks of a cooler-than-normal June Gloom, the sun broke through and the mercury soared. Triple digits, inland. High nineties, here by the beach.

Granted it was a dry heat, not like the unbearable humid summer days of my NY youth when by 9 o'clock in the morning my sweaty clothes had the aroma of 9 o'clock in the evening.

Nevertheless it was hot and it gave me ample reason to reset the Nest Thermostat and fire up the jet engine air conditioning units I purchased way back in October.

The 2 &1/2 ton Trane XB 14 and the 3 ton Trane XB 16 purred to perfection. And within seconds, virginal cool air was blowing through the all the ducts in the house, well almost all the ducts. But that's a $1000 repair for another blog.

We, meaning all the Siegels, were in heaven. And that includes my two princess daughters, home from college, whose first spoken words many years ago were not "Dada" or "Mama" but "We have to get a/c for the house."

Of course, the happiness was short-lived. As it always is in my life. My former art director, John Shirley, is fond of saying, "You're only happy when you're unhappy."

That couldn't be a truer statement. Because within hours of putting the air conditioning on I felt a conditioned reflex to turn it off.

Maybe it's the Scottish in me.
Or the Jewish in me.
Or maybe as I posited on Father's Day I have fully evolved into my father.

In another lifetime, he drove an old Pontiac Bonneville. It was the first car we ever had that came equipped with air conditioning. It was an after-market air conditioning unit installed below the push-button radio but that hardly mattered.

It blew cold air.

Or so we were led to believe. Because the old man refused to turn it on. Ever. It put a strain on the engine and used up too much fuel.

"Roll down your windows."

"Drink some water."

"Why don't you kids shut up?"

And there it was. The explanation for my a/c hesitance.

From a very, very young age, I had it drummed into my head that running the air conditioning is an expensive proposition.

And this is when gasoline was only 28 cents a gallon.