To AC or not to AC, - that is the question:-

Whether ‘tis easier on the wallet to suffer
The misery and sweat of outrageous humidity,
Or to take air-conditioning against the stifling oppression,
And by creating a breeze end it?- To cool,- to dry,-
No more; and by dry to say we end
The clamminess, and the thousand chafing burns
That thighs are heir to, ‘tis a Paradise
Continually to be wisht. To cool, - to dry;-
To dry! Perchance to go out again later; aye, there’s the rub;
For in that chilly state of aircon what delusions may come,
When we have shuffled off this cotton t-shirt,
Must give us three further shirts a day: there’s the catch
That makes charity donations of so grand a wardrobe;
For who would bear the burning and dehydration of equatorial heat,
The weatherman’s monotony, the doorman’s insistence on dress-code,
The pangs of relentless thirst, the condensation drip on your crotch,
The cessation of aircon in the office after six of an evening, and the moistness
That the commuter meets, unwarranted all be it,
When he himself might be jostled against another drenched wretch
With a bare arm? Who would bear their employer’s ergonomic backpack,
To puff and pant under a laptop or files so as to work on the weekend,
But that there is a chance of someone else to foot the AC bill,-
The 24 hour coffee shop, from whose caffeinated, icy cold couches
No worker returns,- it puzzles the will how they can afford to cool us all,
And makes us rather bear ill towards those early birds who already have a table
Than fly to another coffee house that we know not of.
Thus humidity does make slaves of us all;
And thus the pale-face immigrant’s hue of pastiness
Is ruddied o’er with the steaminess of a sauna;
And images of an outdoors life and getting back in shape,
With this draining heat, these endeavours fall away,
And lose the name of action.


What Hamlet might have said, had he ventured outside of Elsinor for a summer vacation to Singapore instead of bemoaning his unhappy lot in rather more temperate Denmark.
Shovel