CAPTAIN MY CAPTAIN

One of the sad things left behind in the move was this hard workin' hunk of plastic and leaky chemicals. Sure it looks like a beat up air conditioner. That's because it is. How am I attached to some mechanical freeze box? Oh, it's background is vast, rich, and engaging. Poor ol' Cap'n Krunch. Have ye not heard the tale of the cap'n? No! Weeeeell sit back and fill a pipe for a yarn ta please ya.

One Summer, many burning seasons past, I gave up on sweating to death in my hotbox oven of a room in the old hobby flophouse I inhabited with 2 other goons. It was time for one of them newfangled air coolies I've read so much about. Of course I waited until mid-season to get an air conditioner and the choices were slim to none. There were vast swathes of empty concrete floor where all the good air conditioners used to be. Ya know, the neat ones with settings and a remote. But there were a few left, in way damaged boxes stuffed in a dank corner of the Home Despot. So I walked out with a big, weighty, stupid, expensive, no-feature having hunk of plastic. Great job.

I arrived home and got to setting it up. Like all air condition units claiming to fit any window, it didn't really fit too well. I fidgeted with stuff and wedged slabs of wood beneath it to level it out and in general made a mess of things. One of the roommates (we'll call him Spengy) eventually snuck over (he is sneaky when he wants to be) to see what I was doing. I sorta explained why everything is so stupid and in the midst of the rant, opened the window above the unit. The window holding the air conditioner in place.

Now, Spengy claims to maybe been able to grab the cord as it snaked it's way out the window, but instead opted to just let it go. I'm with him on that, I see the logic. Besides it was funny. My pocket wasn't laughing, but I sure was. Poking our heads out the window to survey the damage, the best part of the adventure revealed itself. Out there in our driveway, 10 feet or so from the dropped 80 pound or so deathconditoner, was a dude with a box of pizza. He just sorta looked up at us and walked off.

It ends here right? Nah. Being the cheap bastard that I am and the fact that I had yet to even turn the damn air conditoner on - I went to retrieve and revive the unit. I plugged 'er in and it sprung to life, despite the 2 story jump. But the fan was all mangled and rubbing against all sorts a shit and the plastic was busted and it was leaking water. All totally fixable with the one tool I had in hand, a hammer.

Buncha whacks later and some questionable internal duct tape jobs (red duct tape, the same stuff I later used on my busted glasses for all you trivia nuts out there) the monster lived! Sure it was way loud and grindy and had to be set on an angle just right or else it leaked a torrent of water back into the room, but it blew semi-cool air.

Out came the sharpie. A few teeth drawn onto the busted grill plus a name to fit the bill and Cap'n Krunch was born! He served to temper many a burnination Summer before retirement and eventual dumpster banishment. You were one of the good ones cappy.

Alright, so it's not a great story. More of an Aesop fable without animals or a moral, but it is what it is. I just happened across this photo and decided to post it. Now you can't unlearn what you've just read.