Male Chauvinist Air Conditioning

Random word: Air

You can breathe air, and put air in your tires. If you’re exceedingly happy, you are “walking on air.” Those Russians who climbed to the tip-top of the Empire State Building’s antenna were close to literally walking on air. But the wind was taken out of their sails by the NYPD. They have been charged with a few felonies, and have thrown themselves on the mercy of court, shouting, “To air is human!”

You can also put on airs, which means to make a big show of acting superior to those around you. Airs comes from a French word meaning ostentatious outward appearance, as when you put on a top hat and walk around with a cane. Mr. Peanut puts on airs, but he is a shell of his former self.

And, of course, you can condition air.

“I turned my air conditioner the other way around, and it got cold outside. The weatherman said, ‘I don’t understand it. It was supposed to be 80 degrees today.’” – Steven Wright

Air conditioning has been in the news, engendering a lot of heated discussions, to which I say, “Cool it! Let’s have a rational discussion about temperatures.” Remember rational discussions? If you’re under 40, probably not. It was a real thing once. Honest! There was actually a show called Firing Line where a fellow named William F. Buckley would chat for an hour with someone who held different, sometimes abhorrent views, and it would be an actual debate, an exchange of ideas, without cursing—in other words, the exact opposite of X.

According to Euronews:

Amid record-breaking temperatures, the European Commission has declined to take a stance on the increasingly contentious debate over air conditioning, saying it is not the role of the EU executive to dictate consumers’ choices.

And now there’s a serious (or semi-serious if you’ve had a couple beers) case being made in intellectual circles (or semi-circles if you have a PhD) that air conditioning, besides being a threat to the electrical grid, is sexist.

The argument goes something like this. Air conditioning was created so men in suits and ties could be more comfortable in their offices on hot days. But it made the women who were typing their letters uncomfortable because their body type generally feels colder than a man’s. This is why men often get “the cold shoulder,” which makes them “hot under the collar,” causing them to lower the thermostat even more. This is called a “vicious cycle” or “the line at the DMV.”

According to a study out of Maastricht University in the Netherlands (acceptance to which requires that you correctly pronounce it), sixteen young women were surveyed, one at a time, inside a “climate chamber.” Each wore underwear, sport socks, a cotton T-shirt, and cotton-polyester sweatpants, along with fourteen coin-sized wireless skin-temperature sensors. They sat behind a desk in a standard office chair as the climate controllers fluctuated the temp between warm and cool. At various points the women were asked to record their comfort level on a sliding scale (causing some of them to slip and fall). It was determined that women are more comfortable with 77°F, while men prefer 72°F.

I must side with the men, being one myself (my pronouns are ugh/oof). I always feel hot in a suit and tie in Southern California. My first position out of law school was with a big firm in Beverly Hills, and I needed to show up each day in a crisp shirt, tie, and suit. A year later I decided to open up my own office so I could be closer to home, wife, and kids—a seven-minute commute, as opposed to the 45 minutes to an hour to and from Beverly Hills.

Or was my decision because, deep down, I just didn’t want to wear a suit every day?

When I moved to writing full time, I went casual, sometimes real casual, e.g., underwear and robe (file this under TMI). But I recognize there’s positive discipline associated with a suit. Back in the day it was a sign of professionalism and respect for those with whom you did business. A good suit also showed that you respected yourself which, along with a good shave, helped you advance in the world.

Men used to wear suits out in public. Take a look at old photos of patrons of a baseball game prior to 1960 or so. Most of the men are in suits and a hat of some sort, with straw-hat “skimmers” the favored lid.

Men also wore suits to church. Not any more. Even your Gen X pastor is likely to do his preaching in jeans, Nikes, and an untucked shirt. We had a lovely fellow at our church, Dean, who died recently at the age of 100. He always wore a suit and tie to church. He was the last man suited, in fact. “It was the way I was raised,” he explained to me one day when I asked him about his attire. That was it. No further explanation needed.

“Eat to please thyself, but dress to please others.” – Benjamin Franklin

A male corpse is usually in a suit and tie in an open casket. Which is why an agnostic’s headstone reads: All dressed up and nowhere to go.

When one is born, it is said, one wears a “birthday suit.” This is with you all your life, and is why clothes were invented. The original ensemble was made of fig leaves fashioned by Adam and Eve (who were also the first of all unions to defy management).

As I related in a recent Whiz Bang (for paid subscribers):

A pastor went to check on someone who hadn’t been to church in a while. He knocked on the door. No answer. He knocked again and called out, “Is anyone home?” No answer.

He took out a church card and on the back wrote Revelation 3:20 and wedged it in the door.

At church that Sunday an usher handed the preacher the same card. Under Revelation 3:20 someone had written Genesis 3:10. Then the pastor knew why no one answered.

Revelation 3:20: “Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me.”

Genesis 3:10: “I heard thy voice, but I was afraid, because I was naked.”

In 1955, the Rev. Robert Schuller made headlines by having church in an abandoned drive-in movie theater. A wag suggested this ad line: Come as you are, but stay in your car.

Some years ago the cops in L.A. stopped the driver of a convertible for not wearing a seatbelt. He was 6’4”, had an open bottle of Cuervo Gold on the passenger seat, and was dressed only in a Santa Claus hat and a G-string. This amused me, and I clipped the story from the newspaper (remember those?) and tossed it in a box of random clippings I used to keep. I’d go through these periodically, to see what sparked an idea for a novel. This one was too good to pass up, and became the opening of my Ty Buchanan legal thriller Try Fear.

That’s L.A. for you. And it’s hot out here. Mrs. B, the former musical theater star, will sometimes sing, “We’re having a heat wave, a tropical heat wave…” That’s from an Irving Berlin song written for Ethel Waters in the 1933 musical As Thousands Cheer. It’s about a “heat wave” that blows in from the island of Martinique, only it isn’t the air. It’s a can-can dancer who raises the temperature of the men in the room:

She started a heat wave
By letting her seat wave

Let that be a lesson to us all. (I don’t know what the lesson is, but it’s a good way to end this Wandering.)