When I got home from work on Tuesday, the “comfort advisor” from Sedgwick’s Heating & Air Conditioning was there. My husband had informed me that the representative would be showing up between 5:30 and 6:00, and I rolled in at 5:31.  By the time I arrived on the scene, Dale and the Sedgwick’s Comfort Advisor dude had already written up the paperwork on what was going to replace our kaput AC unit. I was asked to throw out a credit card for the guy since I had my bag in my hand and Dale’s wallet was upstairs. Without so much as an explanation as to what I was paying for — I only knew from glancing at the paperwork that whatever it was cost $2900 — I tossed the  dude my credit card.

Well, what I paid for was a basic model air conditioning unit, the only one Sedgwick’s carries that replaces the compressor that they installed almost 14 years ago when the house was built. Anything else would require rewiring and repiping since the newer units don’t even use freon anymore. The model we bought can be a basic replacing of the unit that we had with no extra work required.  That’s what $2900 buys us.

I’m still ticked about having to buy a new AC unit for that much money since we only use it a handful of days during the summer. I’m glad on those days that we DO have it, but I probably wouldn’t even opt for central AC if it hadn’t come as part of the house. And, of course, when you own a house in an “executive development,” it’s expected that it will have central AC in it. That AC compressor that we’re replacing was probably run a total of less than 150 days in its 14-year lifetime, and if left to my own devices, I wouldn’t even replace it and opt instead for air-conditioning the sleeping quarters with room AC only when needed. I could buy a lot of room air conditioning for far less than $2900!

But that’s not what we’re doing because we have to have central AC to be good suburbanites and have what everyone else has, to have what people would expect us to have to own a house where we do. We’d have to replace the central AC eventually anyway if and when it comes time to sell the house, which is what we’re planning roughly 10 years from now.

I could have burst into tears when this transaction was completed on Tuesday.  I felt so frustrated.  We need whole-house, central AC like we need typhoid fever, considering the handful of days it is required during a typical summer in Minnesota..  I lived for almost 40 years of my life without central AC.  What I found frustrating to the point of tears is that we’re locked into this decision because of cultural expectations that a house in a certain kind of neighborhood will have central AC.  We’re required to conform to a certain standard of living in order to live where we do.

I hate that.  I hate that with a passion.  It hit me full force again how much I hate living in the “executive development” environment.  Yes, I like my house well enough.  I like my wooded lot and our wildlife.  I like the way that I can sit on my back porch and ignore the fact that I’m in the middle of suburbia.  But on occasions when I’m forced to pan out from that narrow focus and recognize the cultural environment I live in, I realize how ill-suited I am to be a member of that community.  I’m too much of an individualist and a non-conformist.  I don’t do at all well with cookie-cutter environments.  I don’t do well with societal norms and expectations when it comes to making personal decisions about my lifestyle and what I need out of it.

I don’t NEED a new cockadoody central AC unit!  I would have preferred to talk about OPTIONS rather than what we need to keep the house at a certain standard of living, a certain level of expectation more designed to fulfill someone else’s needs than ours.

But I don’t have that choice right now and therin lies the frustration.

The new cockadoody AC compressor is suppose to be installed today.  Happy birthday to me.