Stive

To stuff; to crowd; to fill full; hence, to make hot and close; to render stifling.

I sometimes blast my air conditioners at full tilt during the winter time. Other human beings do this, too, and as a tribe we attract the disdainful curiosity of people passing by outside who don’t understand the seemingly gluttonous need for indoor air conditioning while it is 20 degrees outdoors. I usually only do this toward the start of the winter season. At that time the central heat in this apartment building is turned on, and the abrupt change in temperature and humidity is jarring to my senses. Before I got a loud air filter I also blasted the A/C for its white noise that drowned out the random sounds of city life outside. Soon after I moved in to this apartment the owner of this building quizzed me on this, asking why I ran my A/C in January while it was below freezing outside. I do not remember what I said in reply, but at the time I lacked the poise to immediately see that it was none of his business. If I had had my wits about me I might have just ended the discussion with that as a reply. Instead we ventured off into what he said was his real reasons for asking. He wanted to be sure the heat was not too high, and to be sure I knew that I could adjust the heat in the apartment, and so on. I remember this vignette because it and other blunt encounters with the owner of this building have caused me to keep a distance between him and myself for the 11 years that I have lived here.