Living without an air conditioner is one of those things that gives you a certain degree of bragging rights.

Even though most of us are beyond the “My dad can beat up your dad” days, we still like to feel like we’re tough.

So, when you tell people that you don’t have an air conditioner, you see a slight shimmering of respect in their eyes right before they inevitably say “Boy, that’s gotta suck.”

Truth be told, beyond the bragging rights there’s very little that is good about not having an air conditioner. Especially during this last month, when the temperature has consistently been in the upper 90s with high humidity.

Trying to cope with the heat is a long struggle, much like the Bataan Death March. Okay, it’s very little like the Batan Death March, but to a white bread-eatin’ college boy it can seem like a lot.

There’s several coping mechanisms that begin to kick in when the temperatures reach into the mid-80s. The first, and most effective, is to place fans in the windows.

One of the most important values my parents taught me was the value of cross-ventilation.

My roommates and I have made detailed drawings of our apartment in an effort to figure out where the best windows are to place our two giant, box-style fans.

A good breeze through the old apartment can do a lot to cool a room down, but even that can’t stop the heat when the mercury creeps into the 90s.

It’s about that point that all activity begins to slow to a crawl. You know how molecular activity slows down near absolute zero?

The same thing happens when it’s about 98 degrees in Iowa.

The problem is that at those temperatures so much of your energy is being used not dying, very little is left for anything else.

Basic household activities no longer happen. Before long you stop washing the dishes, doing the laundry and even going to the bathroom.

Then one day you wake up in your living room in a pile of your own dirty clothes and feces and say to yourself, “Why should I even go on?”

Luckily, just when things seem their bleakest, a cool front will sweep across Nebraska and bring sweet relief.

After a few days of highs in the 70s, you kind of forget what it was like only a short time before. You start thinking to yourself, “Gee, it’s so great that I’m living this summer without that awful artificial air-conditioning. It’s like I’m getting back in touch with nature, like Thoreau.”

And then another freakin’ heat wave hits, and you’d give your roommate’s stereo for an air conditioner. Well, you’d try to anyway. Actually, I guess I tried to — I don’t know if anyone else would (Sorry, Sean).

There are many other ways to try to cool down from the heat, and when it’s hot enough you’ll try them all.

One of the first things you’ll do is to identify where all of the really cool places in the world are. Movie theaters are always unbelievably cool and there’s nothing better than catching a matinee on a hot day.

Of course you can take that to an extreme, like when you find yourself paying $3 to watch “Air Bud 2: Golden Receiver” for the fourth time.

Luckily, not every cool place is as expensive to get into as the movie theater. I’ve found the mall is usually pretty pleasant, and there’s plenty of stuff to do there.

Bath and Body Works alone can offer hours of distraction for any strapping college lad. Last weekend I found this great lotion that really opens up the pores in my face.

A good cold shower is always another great way to cool off. The problem is, when it’s hot, you need to determine how many showers you’re willing to take in a day.

It’s just so damn hot that you break a sweat just flipping channels on the TV, so you really need a shower about every 20 minutes.

Myself, however, I don’t like spending that much of the day naked and alone. I usually try to limit myself to two showers a day.

Living without air-conditioning, you’re also going to have to be aware of the bad advice you’re going to get from other people on how to stay cool.

Most of this will consist of people suggesting that you rig up some kind of a contraption involving a fan blowing across a block of ice.

To these people I usually say, “Listen, I saw that episode of ‘The Flintstones’ too, but trust me, it doesn’t work.”

But whatever method you choose to stay cool, the important thing is to not give up hope. With a little ingenuity, and a whole lot of perseverance, you can survive — even without air-conditioning.

---

Ben Godar is a senior in sociology from Ames. He is A&E editor of the Daily and one hot effenheimer.