How Santa gets in, and what he does when it's not Christmastime.

We have been having some problems with our air-conditioning. Ice kept building up against the coils behind the air filter so that no air could come into the air conditioning system, which meant that we had to turn off the air conditioning and wait about 12 hours for the ice to melt enough that we could turn the fan on to speed up the process of the ice melting. It happened about five times, and two of those were after the filter had been replaced (as you can probably imagine, the old filter was falling apart after getting wet and soggy so many times). I think the last four years have spoiled me, because I grew up without air conditioning and also slept on the hot top floor of the house for much of that time, so I should not be having a problem with sleeping in a hot apartment. But I was dying. Anyway, the last time it happened we called housing support and asked them to come take care of it. (One benefit of not owning a home is that you don't have to take care of your own air conditioning!) One thing I will praise UNC for is the good housing support we get. Generally when I need something fixed there is somebody there to take care of it within a couple of hours, and they do a good job. Well, a couple of maintenance men showed up and refilled the coolant and said that should take care of the problem. And it did. For a couple of hours.

Unfortunately, we figured out that the AC was dying at about 5:30 (too late to call for help), and the apartment was at about 89 degrees all night. The fan worked, but no cool air was coming out. It was a miserable night.

In the morning I called housing support again. And that was when Santa Claus showed up with two of his elves, one of which was one of the AC repair men from the day before. The repair man had noticed that our lock was sticking, so he called for some help to get the lock fixed since they were already there fixing the air conditioning. It turns out that Santa Claus is a locksmith most of the rest of the year. So that's how he gets into your house at Christmas time. (He told me himself that he was Santa Claus, so I'm sure.)

I always wondered about that growing up, because our house was heated by a coal furnace in the basement, and if he came in by the chimney Santa Claus would have to squeeze into a small space that held the coal and then somehow manage to get the door open, and I just couldn't see how that would work. This makes a lot more sense.

And the AC seems to be working fine. Phew!