Fan Club

I find the steady drone of a fan to be very relaxing. If I have trouble sleeping in my bed I reach behind me and flip the switch on a small fan.  My wife, and I each have our own personal fan; it’s kind of like having a sleep number bed except that instead of adjusting the mattress firmness, you control the air movement and background noise in your own personal space.

In addition to the personals, we have a public ceiling fan – it moves the air just fine, but it doesn’t give off a soothing sound.

It has been a wonderful summer for sleeping with the windows open.

Although I love the soothing sound of a fan, it does tend to drown out the noises of the night and early morning. So, like anything else, there are trade-offs.

If the fan is on I can’t hear the crickets chirping, coyotes yapping, thunder approaching, a cow calling, a lone truck on the highway, or a wren scolding me for sleeping in. Of course, with all that racket who can sleep?

My grandson, Micah, was over for a couple hours Saturday. After an afternoon of him running around inside the house, playing with toys, reading books, riding on the golf cart (outside the house), sitting in the fire truck, chasing the cat and gathering eggs, Rhonda decided it was time for a nap (he or me?).

She has a routine of getting Micah in the mood for a snooze, and he was almost there but at the last minute he decided he did not want her to leave the room with him still in the crib. As she had things to do, she appointed me to lie on the bed next to the crib to show him how it’s done.

With all the up and down of retrieving something Micah had either dropped or thrown from the crib, I was able to stay awake for the first ten minutes. But then the sound of the fan worked it’s magic, and I entered that blissful land of Nod, where I was neither asleep nor awake. I could hear Micah walking and jumping around in his crib as he jabbered to himself or me (I couldn’t tell).

After about an hour of restful babysitting I made an executive decision: This little boy had not only not napped – he was wide-awake. So I got him up and we went downstairs.

When I got there it felt warm, so I checked the thermostat. It was 81 degrees, which is a little too warm, especially when the air-conditioner is on.  I checked the breaker, the settings on the thermostat, and I would have checked the condenser or the coil, but I didn’t know how.

According to the forecast, the heat and humidity was going to continue into tomorrow night. Great. Realizing that I was not going to expire from heat stroke and that Saturday afternoon of Labor Day weekend is no time to call a repairman, I accepted my temporary lot in life.  I turned on a fan, sat down and let the sweat run, but at least I was relaxed.