PHIL BROWN
Let me tell you a story. It starts with a green tree snake sunning itself in our front garden at the beginning of summer. Nothing to worry about right? So we put it out of our mind and didn’t see it in the garden again.
Fast-forward a few months to the midst of that recent heatwave. I love a heatwave because it gives me a chance to try out my worst (or best, depending on your point of view) dad joke. I can’t tell you how many times I said “It’s so hot out there I just saw a chicken plucking itself”. It’s good, right?
Anyway we suffered like you all suffered but thank heaven for airconditioning. We had all three units pumping in unison to get through the event. I should add that we are quite parsimonious regarding our aircon usage most of the time. I mean if a fan will do it we opt for that but this heatwave required aircon. If I could have gone over and camped inside the Gallery of Modern Art I would have. GOMA has the chilliest aircon in town for my money.
But where was I in this story? Oh yes, well my son, who was back from Europe and spending a month with us before moving to Sydney, was feeling the heat after five months in Lyon where it gets coolish in winter. He was enjoying it but he was thankful for the aircon in his room.
He went out clubbing with mates on the penultimate day of the heatwave and came home at 2am to find a note from me on his bed. “Your aircon is not working”. Not what he wanted to hear but there you have it.
We were going away for the weekend next day so I booked an aircon technician to come over late Sunday arvo to fix it. He arrived and was toiling away and called out to me, “Hey mate, you better come and have a look at this!”
Intrigued I went downstairs and there he was pulling a snake out of the airconditioner’s motor unit or whatever you call it. I recognised the snake of course. “Bloody hell! So that’s where he ended up.”
“Never seen this before,” he said, removing it. It went in the bin and I can report that the aircon is now working again. Thereby hangs a tale.