CONTENTS UNDER PRESSURE: SURVIVING THERMOSTAT WARS TAKES COURATE (AND A SWEATER)

Is anybody else ready for fall?

Now that it's June, it's officially summer as far as I'm concerned.

I know the solstice isn't until June 21, but the temperature's already gotten to 90, and above in some places, so as far as I'm concerned, the grilling season has arrived.

Some people think of baseball or corn on the cob or fireworks when they think of summer.

Baseball takes too long, and fireworks give me a headache. When I think of summer, I think of air conditioning and try not to sweat.

I'm not a warm-weather kind of girl. At heart, I'm all buttoned up and wearing long sleeves.

Fortunately, there's air conditioning.

There was a time when you had to go the movies to experience air conditioning. That wasn't necessarily a bad thing; you also got a double feature and popcorn.

But when it was time to go home, you got heat stroke and really crabby, sweaty people.

I like some things about summer. I like strawberries, watermelon and lemonade. I like Fourth of July picnics and barbecue.

Unfortunately, I don't like heat or humidity, which cuts down considerably on my enjoyment of the season.

One thing I do enjoy about summer are the thermostat wars.

Anyone who's ever worked in an office with more than two employees knows what I mean. You're roasting, but your co-workers two cubicles away or across the hall or upstairs in bookkeeping are pulling on thermal underwear and breaking up their desks for firewood.

Temperature control is one of the many things that makes the workplace such a fascinating subject for study.

Personally, I'm ready to swear the jet stream swoops down from the stratosphere, or wherever it is, to carry a cold front directly over my desk.

One day I'm going to come in and find frost on the walls of my cubicle.

And in the next department, they're complaining it's too hot.

It's too hot outside; it's too cold inside. Some of us are never satisfied.

My beloved Pop was an HVAC specialist for many years at a large manufacturer in St. Louis and was always mediating thermostat feuds.

Sometimes things would get so ugly he'd just install dummy thermostats. They weren't hooked up to anything, but employees could fiddle with the temperature controls to their hearts' content, and everyone was happy.

It's nice to feel like you have some control.

The weather right now is at an awkward stage. It's too hot during the day to survive without air conditioning, but too cool at night to leave it on.

Soon, though, the entire region will be wrapped in a superheated, wet wool blanket, and we'll all get to experience the joys of summer on the Mississippi River.

The other problem with summer is I don't have anything to wear. Bulky woolen clothing hides a multitude of sins.

Especially after all the ice cream it took me to get through last summer.

Peggy O'Farrell is a staff writer for the Southeast Missourian.