All that talk about growing up and becoming more mature…well, don’t I feel silly. I still have my faults, make my mistakes, almost set my house on fire. Yep, all that still happens.
You see, I went on a business trip to Moorabin. Air conditioning services have always intrigued me and I was able to witness one up close on my travels. Of course, that big scary grid they used to have is no longer in use, but it’s intriguing to see how they’ve compensated in the meantime. Almost astounding, their cooling is impressive. I was deeply interested, so when I got back from the trip, I challenged myself to make my own little cooling system. It was an ambitious project, though to be fair, I did it safely. I made sure Genevieve knew what I was doing so she could be on ambulance standby (the fact that I needed that should’ve been a clue) and I conducted the experiment in the back garden, not the living room. My mock cooling system was essentially a bed of ice underneath a crude paper mock-up of a city, with ventilation and a metal grate to stop the water from setting in place. This was more or less how the cooling grid was supposed to work: one giant under-floor ice box.
It was going so well. I made lots of little paper people and dogs and cats, all with smiles on their faces as they enjoyed the heating services. Then disaster struck. There must’ve been a few scraps of bark chucked out by the birds on the grass below. They were cooled by the ice, and paper tends to do, they did a bit of jumping as they got wet. Anyway, the water they threw up was small enough to fit through the grate, and a flood began in the east. Within seconds, my paper Adelaide was under water and twisting in the wind, and the whole thing began to blow towards the house. Only my mad dash for the hose saved the house, though the city was ruined. Now I know what the air con repair company based in Highett has to face on a day to day basis. They are more successful than I. What a fearsome amount of responsibility.