It is interesting, though my actual thoughts about it are inchoate.
Wait, that's how camera guys dress everywhere and for everything. Who are the well dressed camera guys?
Jeans and tees ARE well-dressed for camera guys if the tear and stains are smallish.
I love seeing photographers at press conferences actually wearing those vests that are a marker for The Courageous War Correspondent in the movies. (Not that there's any reason they shouldn't; they're very useful, I hear. And not that I'm making light of the courage of war correspondents. In conclusion, not a criticism, just an observation.)
I liked the "secret vein of altruism" line. Hill staffers are simultaneously some of the most cynical and most idealistic people you'll ever meet. Most of what we work on fails, but we keep working because we, perhaps foolishly, believe that success is possible.
4: I will admit to having a few of those around. Very handy for carrying stuff while on a motorcycle in hot humid weather. No protection against road rash but still better than fainting.
5: very good description. But it's even more complex than that...the cynicism and the idealism sort of merge. Hill staffers have power in the existing system so it is helpful to commitment and career advancement to be idealistic about what the existing system can do and is doing. Another way to put it: people keep working at it because it's a fun job, and it's necessary to have fun to do it well. But it's only a fun job if you can convince yourself that you're doing some good/will do some good.
I work around that world too, if you want to out yourself to me, drop me a line at autumn.indc@yahoo.com
That is an interesting piece. The "secret vein of altruism" bit surprises me a little bit, and it's not really to my credit that it should do so (I'd have been just as likely to see the inner workings on Capitol Hill as a realm of extreme secrecy, manipulation, and favor-trading,* requiring playing things close to the vest rather than semi-enthusiastically explaining things to outsiders), but it makes sense. You'd have to be a charlatan or a fool to think, working in that realm, that nothing you do actually has important and broad ramifications, about which nobody else cares a whit.
That came out terribly. PGD's statement probably suffices.
On the other hand: aren't many, many people in a variety of fields both cynical and idealistic about what they do? I guess I'm seeing parallels even to my own very small professional endeavors.
* One does hear an awful lot about ex-Washingtonians moving on to lobbying or consulting positions.
One does hear an awful lot about ex-Washingtonians moving on to lobbying or consulting positions.
Working as a congressional staffer and working as a lobbyist are kind of sort of the same thing. Exact same set of skills, just deployed somewhat (not completely) differently.
Of course there are public interest lobbyists as well, lobbyists for unions, for universities, for cities and state governments, for public hospitals...there's a whole spectrum.
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One from the "simple events as the possible telescopes for a larger agony" file:
"Woman admits she burned down 3,500-year-old tree".
The 118-foot-tall bald cypress was about 3,500 years old and was the fifth oldest tree in the world...
However, through Crimeline tips, they learned Barnes and a friend were inside the tree taking methamphetamine. Agents said Barnes took pictures of the fire and downloaded the images to her cellphone and computer. Officials said she showed people the images, and said "I can't believe I burned down a tree older then Jesus."|>
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Here's an ATM challenge:
A friend has just lost their younger sibling -- mid-twenties -- because they died in their sleep literally out of the blue (no substance abuse problems, no pills or other signs of suicide, "undiagnosed heart condition" being the best anyone can do for an explanation at this point). Beyond the usual "you are in my thoughts," "deepest condolences" and "hang in there" platitudes, what would you say to them? Is there anything beyond that to say to them?
|>
Is there anything beyond that to say to them?
Unless there's anything specific you could appropriately offer to do for them, not a damn thing. Make sure they know you're there if they need you.
If I ever burn down a 3500 year old tree, I'm going to STFU about it.
If you've ever had anyone close to you die, I've found that people in the same situation find it helpful if you talk about what it was like for you. Having someone die unexpectedly is disorienting on top of everything else, so providing some orientation helps.
16: I'm with Walt on this. Some indication that one isn't going nuts by hearing that vanished person doing something downstairs, or seeing them in a crowd, or otherwise still being around is useful. That sort of thing didn't last long but it sure was weird when it happened.
Looking back and counting, I realize I've seen lots of deaths of people close to me. They've all been sad, the sudden ones have been much harder to deal with. I think the expected deaths get somewhat "processed" (hate that wording, it reminds me of Kraft mac & cheese, but can't think of a better one right now) in advance in a much gentler manner.
I have a dilemma! Y'all should advise me, please.
I live in Sacramento, which is very hot. I haven't had air conditioning for ten years. I haven't missed it. I actively dislike air conditioning (the artificial chill, the dryness, going between air conditioning and outdoors gives me a headache, the white noise, closed windows). I live in an old bungalow, which stays much cooler than you'd expect during the day, and run a whole house fan all night.
I got an energy audit for my old bungalow, which confirmed that the place leaks like a sieve and has no insulation. I asked for a bid on replacing the old floor heater (under a grate in one room of the house, which never heats the house evenly). In addition to other energy-efficiency work, getting a new heater in the attic with ducts to each room would cost $16K. I would be delighted to have this next winter, in a house that holds a constant temperature.
So I went to my funders, and said "Mommy, may I have $16K to get this done?" To which my parents said, "Sure, no problem. If you also get an air conditioner." I got the bid with the air conditioning; it raises the cost of the work to $22K.
I sent that along, saying, I don't want an air conditioner. I wouldn't use it. Why would you spend $6K to have an unused piece of equipment in my attic?
They said, get one anyway, for our comfort when we visit. For your new sweetheart who lives with you, you don't live alone anymore and aren't making unilateral decisions about this stuff. For the resale value of your house. This is the cheapest and most convenient time to get an integrated air conditioning/heating unit. If you don't like it, don't turn it on.
Items:
There is a history of contingent gift giving in my family, but the balances have generally been much larger, making it way more practical for me to take the gift and accept their terms. This is way more trivial. Maybe I say no and pay for my own damn house improvements on my terms, like a grown-up. Or live with a leaky house, like I have for ten years.
I don't want to use the air conditioner, and I also don't want to be the constant enforcer of No AirCon. It is also a burden for me to be the one saying "no, we aren't going to use the air conditioning" to guests. For ten years, it has worked to say "I don't have it. May I set up the fans and serve you an icy drink on the porch, or take you to the river?" when people complain about the heat.
I don't want to cave in on the air conditioner once, then turn around to realize that I live in a house on a cul-de-sac in the suburbs with two SUVs. I don't want to start down a slicky slope. I've already succumbed and used my boyfriend's car when I have perfectly good legs and a bicycle.
I argued with my Mom, and she said "I am sorry about the times when we've put strings on helping you. You can take whichever bid you like." I have to tell the contractor something in the next couple days.
What do I say? Do I want an air conditioner that ten years of experience tells me that I would not turn on?
I say stick to your position unless the parents are getting frail enough so having AC has (or soon will) become a health matter. Age and various meds made temp intolerance a big deal for my mother-in-law and it happened to me on one now discontinued med.
How about just a window/wall AC unit in the guest bedroom?
I removed a window AC unit for ugliness early on. If I'm to have an unused AC unit, it might as well be discreetly hidden in my attic.
(Also the guest bedroom is streetside, so I wouldn't be able to get a permit for a wall unit, 'cause I live in a historic district.)
I'd get the AC installed, but maybe don't buy the coolant. So all the installation and house value stuff is done, but there's no functional ac to tempt your guests. And if global warming continues, and Sacto becomes intolerable, you have an out.
Then put it in and don't use it unless the parents start falling over and hurting themselves.
My sister suggested having the attic unit installed (the bulk of the work), but not the control panel inside the house. So I don't have to see it, but if I want it, I can install the control panel for not much effort later.
Install the controls behind a picture in a recess.
I don't really understand the issue: this money is free from your parents? You'll take 16K but not 22K? This is some kind of moral/environmental issue?
If you believe air conditioning makes my quality of life worse, it is a question of whether I'm willing to accept that for only $22K.
If you believe air conditioning makes my quality of life worse, it is a question of whether I'm willing to accept that for only $22K.
If you believe air conditioning makes my quality of life worse, it is a question of whether I'm willing to accept that for only $22K.
Honestly, I'd try to pay the $16K myself, as a grown-up.
Otherwise you're behaving as though your parents owe you something, which they probably don't at this point.
They totally don't owe me anything. They generally offer, and I ask them occasionally when big chunks would make life more pleasant. If they say no, I say "great, thank you for considering it.". Now I have to figure out what to do with a contingent gift, made less contingent. If we we're getting all stubborn, I could say, no, I don't need it that bad and walk away cheerfully, paying for my own home stuff like an adult. Now that they're being gracious, I can evaluate the air conditioning option on its own merits.
I may have missed something: have they said that they're fine with the $16K without air conditioning? Or only $16K (which becomes $22K) with air conditioning?
This is all kind of silly -- just pay for it yourself. I haven't gotten the impression that you're poor and need to hit up your parents for things.
If you believe air conditioning makes my quality of life worse
If you're not turning it on, then it isn't affecting your quality of life at all. But when you go to sell the house, not having it there is going to turn off lots and lots of potential buyers.
This reminds me of the rental house coffeemaker discussion a few months back.
I can see the parallel. But his is the house I live in, and I'm pretty sure of my own air conditioning preferences. I don't think anyone was saying that the non-coffee drinker had to live with a coffee-maker in her own space.
Was anyone saying that the presence of an un-used coffee-maker reduced the non-coffee drinker's quality of life?
Last summer in DC, during the times I was basically housesitting while the home owner was away and I could use the first floor instead of just the basement, I ran the air conditioning as little as possible. But I was very glad to have the option, especially when it hit the high 90s.
I don't know. Are people going to nag her, and be all "hey, make coffee! You've got the machine right there.". Is it a waste of $6k for the non-coffee drinker to have the unused machine in her house?
Are people going to be telling the coffee-maker, hey, you'll be glad to have the option,when she knows entirely well that she doesn't like coffee, and instead it makes her feel yucky?
On the other hand, I stayed for a month in a sublet a few years ago where the long-term renters ran the air conditioning every night and, apparently for extra insulation, the windows in my room were covered with a thin film like you often see on window-panes, but affixed in such a way that you could not open the window without breaking the film.
Have you considered moving somewhere that doesn't get insanely hot?
My house doesn't get insanely hot, because it was built before air conditioning and designed to stay cool.
What's the boyfriend think? I'm fine with minimal AC personally, but then I married a human space heater. (but we still don't have full house AC, because swamp coolers rule.)
On persistent asking, he is neutral. He mostly doesn't want to get into my family dynamics.
I'd be inclined to get it and not turn it on, but only because growing up in an area where it's still not standard to have full house AC, it would be really weird to go to someone's house as a guest and expect that the AC would be on. My parents had AC but mostly used the house fan whenever they could. So to me it looks like an asset you'd have (for resale) that you wouldn't need to use.
But I hear you. I really don't like AC for all the reasons you mentioned, and I'd really not want it in here.
Explain to potential home buyers that you're saving them whatever amount beyond 22k that they'd have been willing to pay for a house that had 22k of climate control installed.
My house doesn't get insanely hot, because it was built before air conditioning and designed to stay cool.
Have you tried explaining that to your parents?
Just get the damn AC; it's a huge increase in the value of your home and it's so much cheaper to do it now than later that to turn it down is mildly insane. You can get a remote controller for it rather than a panel and bury the controller in the backyard if you like until you sell the house. I fear the real fear here might be that you don't trust yourself -- what if the AC proves tempting and you like it? Then years of self-image and self-sacrifice will have been for naught.
it's a huge increase in the value of your home
Really, this is the crux of the biscuit. I think you're way overplaying an entirely negligible downside.
What's wrong with 21? 21 seemed like a perfect answer. You've still got the extra resale value, and can always buy coolant if we get a crazy-hot summer and you cave in, but it's just as easy to tell guests "sorry, there's no coolant for the AC" as to tell them "sorry, there's no AC."
If 43 is correct, I'm not getting why guests requesting AC is even an issue.
Or the "no control panel" idea from 23, but really, "no coolant" seems much simpler. It's not like your guests are going to be all, "hey, I'll just run down to the corner store and bring some coolant."
54: People have widely divergent ideas of what counts as "hot" or "insanely hot." I apparently have quite a high tolerance for indoor warmth, but I sleep horribly if it's chilly (to me). In the aforementioned DC basement last summer, I wore long pants/long sleeves pajamas at night just to make the AC cooled room tolerable.*
On the other hand, I never for a moment thought it was not insanely hot outside and living in Canada has really lowered my threshold for what counts as cold weather. (I run the heat a lot in my apartment though. Partly because it's included, so I can.)
*The way the vents were set up down there, I bet other people would have found it a bit on the cold side too when the AC was on full blast. Whenever I went up to the 1st floor, I could see why someone might want the AC on, but I didn't set it very low and I mainly made use of the ceiling fan.
People have widely divergent ideas of what counts as "hot" or "insanely hot."
Indeed, and this is sort of what I was trying to get at. Megan might not think her own house gets insanely hot, but she described Sacramento in general as "very hot" in 18, so it's plausible to think that while her bungalow is cooler than you might expect given the circumstances that's still uncomfortably hot for a lot of people, apparently including her parents. That said, obviously it's her house and her choice what to do. I do find it rather odd that she would ask her parents for money for something like this, but eh, families differ.
This is clearly about Megan's self-image and the extent to which her parents are the boss of her. The vehicle for sorting those out is currently manifesting itself in the provision of HVAC for her house. Sound practical advice has been given on the house infrastructure part of the request.
58: I was tip-toeing around that, but yes. To me, M's objections are almost entirely based in stubbornness rather than practical considerations. Which, on the one hand, I do understand: see my refusal to own a cell phone that I could just keep turned off. Other hand: the phone would cost me money every month regardless of usage, and it wouldn't increase the value of my body when I decide to sell it.
60: this is where somebody mentions prepaid implantable cell phones, right?
I think she should turn the AC down.
(1) It's her house. (2) She's more comfortable without AC (and presumably has some principled objection to wasting energy on it). (3) She's been satisfied with the level of comfort she's been able to provide to guests without AC for over a decade now. (4) Her family has a longstanding pattern of twisting her arm into obedience -- her mother may have backed down this time, but patterns like that don't go away all in a moment.
Once the airconditioning's installed, she's in for a series of irritating arguments where she's being ungracious: what, the air conditioning's installed. It'd kill you to fill it with coolant just while we're visiting? You know, your boyfriend looks miserable. Don't you think you're being a jerk by not using the air conditioning that you spent thousands of dollars to install? Oh, a friend's going to be staying with a baby. You know it's not reasonable to let a baby stay in a house that hot.
If she installs it, she's in for either living an airconditioned life, or for a series of squabbles with her family where she's the bad guy. I say it's spinach and I say to hell with it.
Apo, I don't understand how your clients are reaching you now. How do you sell your body if they can't call you for an appointment?
When he sees the Apo Signal silhouetted against the clouds, he knows he has a client.
Apos responding to an Apo signal. (Actually only moderately NSFW).
I do think people systematically miss how choices cascade into a way of being that they never intended and don't particularly enjoy. Once some capacity is installed, it is really damn hard to resist the pressure to use it (just turn on your cellphone for this evening, just check your smart phone at the table for this one possible message, just drive to work instead of walk because it is way cold out). Either a couple years later, you've caved on those, or you fought that pressure for two years, which is also a burden.
The other thing I don't get in this conversation is how people (my Dad) are sure that I am acting out of stubbornness and ideology rather than an awareness of my comfort. I am really damn aware of my comfort. That's why I'm asking for a housewide heater! I run the whole house fan every night with no hesitation, because I love an outdoor breeze. I take great care of my comfort.
Don't get the AC. Drop 6K on insulation instead!
Either deal comes with a bunch of sorely needed insulation. The audit dudes (handsome!) said my house was the oldest and leakiest they've ever audited. I cannot wait until it can hold some warmth.
stubbornness and ideology rather than an awareness of my comfort
But an AC unit you don't turn on *doesn't impact your comfort*. If you don't like air conditioning, you won't turn it on. And it isn't $6K wasted; it's >$6K invested in the future resale value of the house. Not on robot-control bidet jets or hot and cold running coffee taps, but on something that really is considered a completely standard feature of housing anywhere in the country that gets a real summer. The idea that having a modern HVAC system is some sort of slippery slope to living on a cul-de-sac with SUVs is just bizarre.
The amount of time you're going to have a guest in your house *at all* is going to be a relatively small percentage of the overall time in your house, and the percentage of that time that it's somebody who would feel comfortable requesting you to change your climate control is smaller yet. Mostly, I'm just baffled that temporarily accommodating a guest's comfort is such an imposition, but perhaps that's regional difference at work.
I am fairly overawed at the concept of an employed adult routinely asking her parents to pay for upgrades to her house, but that's another issue. For me this isn't even a difficult one: take the money, buy the AC, turn it on when your guests want it on. When you haven't got guests, don't turn it on. If my parents bought me a TV because they liked to watch TV when they visited, I'd take it (even though I don't watch TV myself).
This is what I do with heating. I like my flat at about 15C because it's a temperature I'm comfortable with. But when I have guests who like it at 20C, I turn the thermostat up or light the fire. Because they're guests. Anything else would be ungracious.
But ISTR from the "loud music late at night" conversation that Megan has rather a different cost/benefit tradeoff between inconvenience-to-self and inconvenience-to-others, so there may be no obvious answer.
I'm totally fine without AC as well, and use it fairly sparingly, and live in an old house that was designed not to get oppressively hot, and I get uncomfortable when I walk into places that feel like refrigerators, but hot damn is it nice to have just a bit of relief when it's boiling outside. I mean, come on: "May I set up the fans and serve you an icy drink on the porch, or take you to the river?" works well enough, sure, we'll all survive, but, well, an icy drink or a trip to the river might be fine, but it sure would be nice if it weren't so fucking hot in here that we felt like we needed that. It wouldn't need to be much cooler to be a lot more comfortable. You don't have to turn your home into a refrigerator to make it more comfortable; the ill effects you experience from AC wouldn't be experienced if you were running it fairly minimally. I mean, jesus, just set your thermostat at--85? 90?--whatever you want--and then it will only even come on if and when it's really truly needed. And by "needed", sure, I don't really mean "needed", but I mean "will be sooo much more comfortable." It will also cost very little, if run that sparingly.
If you've got a moral objection to AC, then don't get it. That's obvious. Otherwise, this sounds like pure stubbornness.
Megan, a practical question: isn't the new insulation likely to impede the nightly cooling down of the house, and make it unbearably hot on nights after very hot days? The status quo evening condition is based on your house leaking heat like a sieve, and the efficacy of the fan is based on current air flow conditions. Once this stops, won't it stay hot once heated?
the concept of an employed adult routinely asking her parents to pay for upgrades to her house
Is it so strange? My Mom, who is quite comfortable, got a large inheritance from her father that she doesn't use in her daily life. She offers us a chance at a substantive chunk that would be hard to save up every year or so.
She has the ability to make our lives nicer by writing a check. If she said "no", either of us would say "great, no problem." If she said "kids, I'm using this on horses, hookers and blow", we'd say, "fantastic, I hope you get a lot of fun out of that. I hear Monaco is nice." It isn't ours. We don't expect it. If she were getting fun out of it, we'd be pleased. But the money is there, and so is the willingness to pay for capital improvements or college or investments. She wouldn't pay for vacations and we don't ask for those. Why not use the family's accumulated wealth? It'll come to use in twenty years. Might as well have heat in my house before then.
(They also gave us the down's on our houses. And paid for college. And you know what? We're productive citizens who have it damn good and can have the ability to use our houses to catch our friends in need, which my sister and I have both done.)
The thing is, and this may not have been clear: I have zero problem with someone who says they've got a moral problem with AC. It's manifestly unecessary energy use; they want to minimize their energy use; okay. And you don't want to bring something immoral into your house. Okay. That all makes perfect sense to me. But when you frame it as an issue of your own comfort, you've lost me. There's no possible way it could make you uncomfortable*; it can sit unused or it can improve your comfort. Those are the only two options.
*The only exception to this is if you have different temperature preferences from the BF--if he's uncomfortable and will want it run more often than you otherwise would. In that case, you'll have to compromise and it's conceivable that you personally will be a bit less comfortable, although that will come as a result of greater comfort for him, which ought to be weighed somewhere in this calculation. And that may not even be an issue--he's obviously happy enough without AC fro now.
I have that very worry about the insulation. What if the house stays nice in the summer because it isn't insulated? But I can cool the house with the whole house fan at night, and my friend thinks the coolth is held by the mass of the house during the day, not the air turnover.
Part of what they propose is to seal the crawl space, but I wonder if that's not a source of relatively cool air during the day, and maybe shouldn't be severed from the house.
Is it so strange?
Yes, it is so strange. I mean, it doesn't sound strange in your particular situation--it makes perfect sense--but I assume you recognize how very unusual the situation you've described is.
it can sit unused or it can improve your comfort. Those are the only two options.
That is manifestly untrue. It's existence means I can also be hectored to use it, which people evidently want to do.
Who? Your BF? Your guests? Is their comfort unimportant?
I think there is zero chance that people not in your house will hector you to use your AC more. Not even your parents.
(I've actually never had a guest request that I turn down the temperature in my house, and I've be a bit taken aback by it.)
My situation is pretty common to upper middle class people, isn't it? In our privileged circles, people take these sort of gifts all the time (down payments for houses, weddings).
If you're saying there aren't that many people with moderate family wealth, that is relatively true, and I am in favor of things that let people accumulate that wealth. But there are still lots of them, and they live in the same neighborhoods I do.
Besides, this is the accumulation of three generations of solid professionalism (educated wage-earners, living pleasantly, not extravagantly). You could say it is unusual that we didn't have an extended illness and death, or addition to spend it all (although my grandfather's last three years cost a half million dollars). But it isn't that weird.
I've actually never had a guest request that I turn down the temperature in my house
Me either, and I can't imagine requesting it of somebody else.
Really? There are a dozen comments in this very thread telling me I'm ungracious for not using air con when hypotherical people want it. They couldn't say that before air con was an option.
I think there are two incompatible arguments being made for installing the AC:
(1) Leave it off, it won't have any effect on your life.
(2) Have it installed, because other people who aren't you will be in your house sometimes, and while you may be comfortable without it, they won't be, and you should consider their comfort over your own.
(2) makes more sense to me as what's really going to happen: if Megan lives in a hot place, and there are non-Megan people in her house, they're going to want the AC turned on, at which point she has the option of not considering their wants, or turning the AC on. And once you have that option, it's pretty jerky to say "Sorry, guests, you can sweat. I like the heat." So if the AC's there, it's going to be on whenever anyone wants it: it's a hard desire to say no to.
If she really doesn't want to live in a house where the AC is on pretty frequently, not installing it is the only easy way to do that. You could condemn her for valuing her comfort in her house over that of her guests, but you've got to admit there's a tradeoff.
85: I think you need to distinguish guests from other persons who might be living in the house.
82.1: I think it's pretty high-end upper-middle class. My family's about the same class as yours (dad was a successful professional, the generation before that well-paid working class that accumulated some wealth), but substantial money gifts from my parents would be kind of alien. They paid my way through undergrad, and if I were in money trouble they'd certainly help out, but other than giving me a place to stay for six months when I got back from Peace Corps, it's been 'every tub should stand on its own bottom' since I graduated from college.
not installing it is the only easy way to do that
Comment 21.
And, to be clear, my argument isn't "leave it off, it won't have any effect on your life". It's "decide in your mind how hot a number you would not like your house to get more than." I mean, surely there's some temperature at which that's a true statement. If it were 130 degrees in your house, you would honestly have to say: "If would be a bit more comfortable if it were a few degrees cooler in here". And the real number is probably somewhere below that. But I don't really care where it is. Whatever it is, just select it and set your thermostat to that number. Boom, problem solved. Now, the AC can only make you more comfortable. If the temperature is less than your maximum comfort threshhold, it won't ever come on. If the temperature rises above that, your AC will come on, and you will be more comfortable. You don't have to set it at 72 degrees, which is what Megan's fear seems to be.
I don't think I know anyone who's had substantial money gifts from parents. I know two people, I think, whose parents helped them with a deposit for their flats [on the understanding it would be paid back]. I think in one case it was paid back pretty quickly, and in the other I'm not 100% sure how serious the parents are about getting it back soon, but I expect they'd want it taken under consideration if/when their child sells their flat. It's certainly not normal among middle-class-ish people I know.
87: I'm lying -- Dad paid the caterers for my wedding. It was pretty small by wedding standards, and we could have managed it fine by ourselves, but he thought it was the thing to do and it was very nice of him.
That surprises me. We aren't talking about anyone getting crazy successful here.
Two generations back: two schoolteachers, an engineer and a librarian. Each lived in one house that they owned. There was some successful investment, but nothing disproportionate.
One generation: A consultant and a professor. Owned one house in LA until they split.
Now: Two engineers.
On the one hand, every adult in my family was college-educated and held jobs their entire adult life. But on the other, this isn't a story of being landlords or owning businesses or having wealth come in any big chunk. I guess it is also a story of not having it dissipated in some way.
Yeah, I think comment 21 or a variant is the answer.
94: Clearly, the AC was too low for the sloth.
I know this thread died of its own accord, but a thought:
66: I do think people systematically miss how choices cascade into a way of being that they never intended and don't particularly enjoy. Once some capacity is installed, it is really damn hard to resist the pressure to use it
I do understand this. What I don't really understand is how getting AC is a step on a problematic slippery slope, but taking moderately large amounts of money from your parents for things you can probably afford yourself isn't. Doing the latter for a one-time event like a wedding, where in many quarters it's traditional for the parents to treat anyway, is one thing, as is accepting a loan from your parents; finding yourself at the point at which you not only accept large-ish gifts (not loans) but actually ask for them with nary a second thought seems another.
I'm sure we all assign differing weights to various of these troubling slopes, however.
I sent that along, saying, I don't want an air conditioner. I wouldn't use it. Why would you spend $6K to have an unused piece of equipment in my attic?
They said, get one anyway, for our comfort when we visit.
I guess I don't quite get why you wouldn't want to consider your parents' comfort, when you're asking them to foot the bill? I mean, I dunno, if I were asking my parents for 16K for an upgrade to my house (which I wouldn't, because they don't have that kind of money) I'd sort of be thinking: Who pays the piper calls the tune. Upgrade to their wishes/specifications, or do it on my own dime, in other words. But I may be missing something.
I appreciate your reasoned and principled opposition to AirCon. But there really isn't that much of a slippery slope from an upgrade to your house's energy efficiency to two SUVs (or 1.5 Hummers, say) in your driveway: it's not all or nothing, after all; and you can have A/C in your house and use it only rarely (only when your parents come to visit, say, for their comfort). You should also consider the re-sale value of your house, imo, because you just never know.
If she really doesn't want to live in a house where the AC is on pretty frequently, not installing it is the only easy way to do that. You could condemn her for valuing her comfort in her house over that of her guests, but you've got to admit there's a tradeoff.
Can and will. As Mary Catherine says, "I don't quite get why you wouldn't want to consider your parents' comfort, when you're asking them to foot the bill?"
If Megan's parents were living with her all the time and wanted her to fit AC, then there might be an issue (though not one that reasonable adults shouldn't be able to resolve). But her parents just visit from time to time. And having guests constrains you in all sorts of ways: you have to stay in with them rather than going out, or go out with them when they want to go out; you can't play loud music late at night; you have to tidy up a bit; you maybe have to run the AC a bit more than you normally would. It's all part of the glorious world of being a polite host.
