Up until one hour ago, I had never used (or turned on) an air conditioner. Growing up in the mountains in Hawaii negated the use for AC. We just opened the windows, let the forest breeze in, waited for an afternoon rain and by nightfall it was in the 50s. I remember laying around under friends' ceiling fans, and I am entirely sure some of them had AC, but I don't recall ever using it. We probably went to the beach or the pool when it got hot enough to need chilled air.
In college, we had heaters in the rooms and that was it. It was Tacoma, after all, and when it got hot in my dorm/house, I usually went outside until it cooled down. When Ben and I started renting an apartment, we experienced the no-airflow city apartment problem and bought spray bottles and misted our feet and legs with them. We even resorted to soaking our clothes in cold water and laying around underneath a blowing fan to cool off. No AC in our first apartment and no screens on the windows necessitated this more often than I'd like to admit.
Today, though, sitting in our third floor bedroom watching Adventure Time, I decided we were using so much electricity running all the fans and having cool showers, that we might as well just try the unit. No joke, we debated turning on our AC for about 10 minutes. Hemming and hawing. Asking ourselves if it was worth it. What weirdos. I think we were both afraid to turn it to "on." Hot feet and grumpy tempers finally turned the decision-tide and now we're sitting in the cool room thinking "what the heck have we been doing all this time?"
The cat? Not a fan. He's been hiding from the AC and jumping every single time it whirrs.