Oddly enough, though, for all its wretchedness, there was somehow a comfort in the humidity’s familiarity. “I go somewhere else and I miss it,” said Ms. Wilson, a nurse who lives in Lafayette. She even had a theory: Humidity kept people on the Gulf Coast looking youthful, acting as a natural moisturizer.
Da’lijah Nae Ozenne, 23, wasn’t so concerned about that.
“I’m staying in the house — with my air-conditioner on 68,” she said. “Every day, all day.”
Except for this rare moment when she had to separate herself from it. Sweat beaded on her face as she stood outside the window at Grab-N-Go, asking Mr. Vitto’s wife, Linda, for a strawberry Fanta.
“Everybody be complaining how hot it is,” Ms. Vitto said as she leaned out the window. “They all want ice. They all want something cool to drink.”
Mr. Vitto declined to give his age. “I’m old enough to vote,” he said. And old enough, he admitted, to recall life before air-conditioning was everywhere. He remembered playing outside all day, coming home, taking a bath in the evening and planting himself in front of a box fan.
But that was a different time, he said.
“Sometimes,” Mr. Vitto said, “it seems unbearable.”
He slid the window closed. He just wanted to savor the hard work of his air-conditioners for as long as he could. Any minute now, the next customer would pull up, and he’d have to greet them with a blast of cool air.