When I was growing up, my dad was in the Air Force.
We rarely lived in one place for more than a few years at a time. We lived mostly in the northern states when I was young. My parents didn’t like to spend extra money on heating, so they kept the thermostat at around 60 degrees in the winter. My brothers and sisters and I used to be so happy to hear the furnace kick on, knowing the warm air would at least heat up the house a little bit. When we found out that my dad was being stationed in the sunny South, our family was beyond excited. My brothers and sisters and I talked happily for the whole car trip, dreaming of how much fun we were going to have in the sunshine. It was still wintertime when we moved and we were looking forward to escaping the cold weather and the barely-used furnace. Our first few months in our new home down South were perfect. The winter weather was beautiful and the house was the perfect temperature with no heater or furnace going. By the time the hot summer rolled around, though, we found out that my parents were as frugal about running the air conditioner as they had been about running the furnace up north. The thermostat was kept at 86 degrees and the air conditioner just didn’t keep the house cool at all. My siblings and I spent most of our summers at the pool since we barely had the comfort of air conditioning in our house. Now that I’m an adult, I happily pay the extra money to run the air conditioner ice-cold all summer and keep the heater going full blast all winter.