Slap Happy

I think one of the best things about spring is the way that no weather pattern lasts for too long. Unlike a season such as summer, when you know one 90+ degree day signals the beginning of a really long stretch of oppressive heat, one day of spring weather is almost no indication of what you should expect for tomorrow. We can go from 80 to 50 in about 6 hours, which is why I was not running for the air conditioning just because yesterday was particularly muggy and uncomfortable. The only real problem with stuffy air is that for some reason my bedroom gets almost no air flow despite having plenty of windows. I can open every window and even the doors, but I can never seem to coax the cooler air from the hallway to come in and for some reason the rest of the house is always at least 10 degrees cooler than that one room. Seeing as how I tend to run hot anyway the last thing I need is hot air making it even worse. Trying to go to bed last night I couldn't take it anymore and decided that even if I couldn't get the cooler air into my room the least I could do was try to move the hotter air around and perhaps get some relief that way. As it would turn out I should have just tried to suck and it and spend the night being uncomfortably hot.

The issue was my standing osculating fan. The first thing you should know is that it is probably older than most of my nieces and nephew and while it has served me well, it is not without it's quirks. Specifically the blades of the fan somehow slide back and forth, occasionally going far enough back that they start slapping into the safety cage which surrounds the fan and making a rather annoying "thwap, thwap, thwap" noise. It started doing this last summer, but close enough to the end of the season I could ignore it and planned to get to it later. I guess now is later enough. A machine making a noise it is not supposed to make is annoying enough, but I have found this is even worse on those occasions when the noise comes and goes, which was the case here. Few things in life are quite as frustrating as waiting for a machine to make the noise so you can start to think about how to fix it, waiting several minutes while it performs its duties exactly as the manufacturers intended it to and then as soon as you turn around it makes the noise almost out of spite. At that moment it is as though the machine is mocking you or playing a game you didn't know had started. But if you think that is bad, you should try going through this experience while trying to sleep. I would be listening intently, not hear the "thwap" for an extended period of time, be 95% asleep and then be woken up when the loud thwapping would start again. It took a long while before I gave up the other way and turned the fan off, opting for silence and humidity.

While I had no doubt some thunderstorms would roll through shortly to get rid of the excessive humidity (and I was right) I also know that this will hardly be the last time I need a fan in the next few weeks. Thus, this afternoon I set about trying to remedy this situation by acting as an amateur fan repairman. At first I was hopeful the solution was as simple as tightening all the necessary screws, but it quickly became apparent that was not the answer to my problem. It didn't matter how tight I tried to make the cage to the fan it would run quietly for a few minutes before the tell-tale "thwap" would begin again. Another solution which came to mind during a particularly frustrating stretch was to remind myself that I had a good run with this fan, cut my losses and eliminate the chance of this happening again by buying one of those Dyson fans which don't actually have an blades but still produce cold air magically. However, my house has air conditioning for the really hot days, so I only really need the fan to help with those occasional borderline days and thus the top of the line product would seem excessive. Plus, when you can run to Wal-Mart and get a brand new model of the fan which I currently use for about $20 and I know that works just fine, spending $300 for a fan seems like a rather idiotic move - I don't care how fancy it is. So, rather than doing the idiotic move in a last-ditch effort I did the redneck move and just removed the safety cage.

I know that sounds like a bad idea and at first it sounded like a bad idea to me as well. That should have been enough for me to stop because trust me, there is nothing I hate more than knowing something is stupid and doing it anyway. However, I was still able to easily talk myself into this plan by reminding myself that I have no small children, large dogs or birds which could accidentally clip this fan as they walk passed it. That means the only person I have to worry about is myself because I now have what is essentially a small boat propeller whirring away in my bedroom and it is standing right about elbow height. It is probably just a matter of time before I get up in the middle of the night, don't put on my glasses because I don't want to turn a light on (not that it would matter since the blades are dark gray), forget I took the cage off and swing my hand into the fan. In some ways the fact that I know this day is coming and I won't have anyone to blame for it but myself when it does is somehow comforting. Also, as a result of months of hitting the metal cage most of the blade edges have been sufficiently dulled so the chances it takes off a finger are pretty slim. Therefore I am pretty sure this solution will be just fine for the few weeks I need it to work until the days are so hot I decide to cave and turn the air conditioning on. That being said, if spring wanted to throw me a week of really warm days sooner rather than later, that probably wouldn't be the worst thing.