We’re right in the molten center of summer, and that means people are doing whatever they can to stay cool.
In the U.S., that’s pretty easy. Sit in your air-conditioned house, plug in a fan, go to a pool or, if you’re truly at a loss, head to the library and pretend to be interested in reading books for an afternoon.
But over in Japan — the birthplace of such technological innovations as the Walkman, the Nintendo Entertainment System and used-panty vending machines — they’ve come up with a new solution that’s completely ridiculous, unless you think sitting in a human refrigerator is normal.
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What you’re looking at is a Do Hiemon “personal cooling box,” and it is the future of cooling off… assuming there are no air-conditioned buildings, public pools, Gatorade coolers full of water, or hand-held fans anywhere within reach.
These two are still turning to outdated handheld fan technology to beat the heat, but human fridge technology is officially here. (iStock)
The 7-foot-tall, 3.9-foot-deep stainless steel box uses a jet to blast air, maintaining a temperature of 59 degrees while directing even cooler 41-degree air at the user’s head and neck.
But it comes at a cost. It’ll run you a cool 1.5 million Yen — or $9,200 — to get one of these puppies.
Sure, this gets the job done, but it’s like saying, “You know how I can get all of these weeds out from between the bricks of my back patio? Dynamite.”
It’ll work, but it’s overkill.
I just like that the genesis of this tech innovation was almost certainly someone opening their fridge on a hot day and being like, “Wait… what if we put people in this?”
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It turns out that the future of human cooling was sitting in our kitchens this entire time (by the way, whoever left that hanging open doesn’t pay the electricity bill). (iStock)
Which, by the way, you can climb into your own fridge for free.
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For legal reasons, I’m not recommending it, but you have free will, and nothing is stopping you from yanking the shelves out of your General Electric and cooling off for a few minutes.
While you’re in there, pretend you’re Indiana Jones surviving a nuclear test in that sequel with the aliens everyone hates.
