Not A Folk Singer

"Remember, Henry? It's Your Nemesis"

Awesome Man and I once went to a dinner party where we were seated next to a young couple, Henry and Alice. In an effort to be social, AM and I mentioned that we'd been hiking in a location nearby. Henry couldn't remember the trail until Alice said, "Remember, Henry? Your nemesis." I envisioned Henry fighting with a bear or a crazed mountain man.

As it turned out, Henry's nemesis was some species of plant that caused him great grief. AM and I kicked each other under the table because, come on, your nemesis is yucca grass?

Later, when we mentioned another hiking site, Henry noted that he had another nemesis, some other species of plant. Throughout the dinner, we discovered that Henry was plagued with nemeses, all of which were green and underwent photosynthesis. I still see Henry sometimes, and I always think of him as a caped crusader fighting all manner of flora.

AM's nemesis is heat. He's obsessed with measuring the temperature in every room of the house. He has temperature sensors strategically placed. One is mounted on the roof. Because lord knows it's important to know the temperature on the roof. (FYI, it's 101 degrees.)

AM has been complaining about high temperature in his west-facing home office for some time. It's become the topic of most of our conversations. "It's 80 degrees in there," he'll gravely tell me, as if he's on the verge of bursting into flames that very second.

After much hand-wringing, AM decided to move his office into the east-facing guest bedroom. (I occupy the south-facing room, a room that originally housed AM's office. We had to move him because it was too bright.) For some time, he has studied the temperature situation by taking regular temperature readings of all the rooms in the house, and according to his calculations, the east room is consistently some degrees cooler than the other rooms. (I can't give you the exact figures, but if you are interested, I'll have AM send you his graph.)

We set about the task of moving his office yesterday. But we couldn't move into the east room until AM covered the windows with some sort of plastic seal that keeps out the heat while allowing light to pass through. We carefully applied the seal to the side of the window that we could remove. It worked beautifully. We then tried the side of the window that could not be removed. After much swearing and general frustration, AM ripped the bubbled and creased covering off the window and yelled something along the lines of, "It's not going to work! I'll just melt to death. Fine!"

I left the room. No good can come from someone who thinks that his nemesis is about to do him in.

I forced AM to leave the house to get some lunch. AM was in a bad mood because he was convinced that the summer heat exists solely to make him miserable. We stood in line to order burgers. AM glared at the people in front of us, and leaned over to whisper in my ear, "Are those assclowns even going to order?" You can understand his frustration: they spent all of ten seconds looking at the menu.

After we got our food, I asked him if he wanted to get an ice cream for dessert. "No," he said, knowing that his nemesis would just melt the ice cream anyway. Why bother?

We go into the car, and it was hot. AM said, "Stupid sun." As if it was purposely shining down with the express purpose of making his car seats unbearably hot.

"Let's finish moving your office when we get home," I said. "It'll be better in the afternoons because you won't have light shining directly in your windows."

"Damn light," he said. "It's everywhere. I'm just going to stay in my old office. That's fine. I'll just sweat to death. That's perfectly fine."

I took deep breaths. I bit my tongue. I reminded myself that his nemesis was making him act like this.

When we got home, we set about moving everything. It took us the entire day. When AM finished the last bit of cord organization (which could occupy him for years, really) at 7:15, I thought we had solved the problem. And we were both happy. We hugged and kissed and delighted in the new office. It was a happy evening.

This morning that man hovered over my sleeping body, and as soon as I opened my eyes, he said, "Limon?"

And I said, "What?" with great apprehension.

"It's four degrees hotter in my new office than it is in the old office."

And then, dear reader, I murdered that man.

Posted expressly for you @ 11:08 AM