elfs | Friends sometimes just bring you a gift...

Box fans!

Real friends bring you two perfectly good box fans the day before the first major heatwave of summer is forecast to break.

The lovely

kaelisinger and her equally lovely husband were cleaning out her mother's old garage, found a few box fans gathering dust, and immediately turned around and offered them to us. They have been lifesavers. Our one ancient fan has fallen over one too many times; pieces are missing from the protective grill, it wobbles when it's running, it doesn't stand quite square, and pieces of rag are shoved into strategic spots on the grill to keep it from rattling. We only leave it on the floor now, propped up by the sliding glass door to the back yard, and try not to turn it all the way up.

It took me only an hour, a screwdriver, a dustrag, a can of air, and a bottle of Mrs. Meyer's cleaning spray, to get all of the dust bunnies out of the mechanism and to get the blades clean, and the two fans have been running perfectly at full speed for several days now. Given that the weather topped 90F yesterday (I know, some of you live in Texas, and Australia, and the open mouths of live volcanoes; for Seattle, that's hot, okay?), those fans, and their givers, have saved lives.