Don’t get me wrong. Not a day goes by in this country when I don’t think, “Thank goodness for air-conditioning.” It is a necessity of life here. Like air, water and falafel.

But too much of a good thing (aside,  perhaps from vanilla ice cream)  can be bad. As we found out again tonight in a movie theater at Marina Mall.

The default setting on thermostats in this country is, I am convinced, “stun.”

And, actually, that’s the way you want it. When it’s 100 degrees out at midday (as it will be here for the next, oh, six months), you don’t want to risk overheating. It can make you ill. It can make you crabby. It can make you unproductive.

Lots of studies have been done on the proper room temperature for an indoor work environment, and they seem to agree that “slightly chilled” is best. Keeps workers bright-eyed. If management lets temps climb into the 80s, people begin nodding off at their desks/cubicles/assembly lines. And, frankly, not many of us are productive when we have lapsed into a heat-induced coma. We might drool into keyboards, too, prompting them to short-circuit, or tumble into moving machinery.

The trouble with setting thermostats for, oh, 68 degrees, and letting the AC get busy … is that it doesn’t take into account how many people might be in a room at a given time. Get enough bodies in there, and that 68 is going to be 78, and Just Right. But when people go home or don’t show up, that 68 is 68 …

Thus, this is a country where you take a sweater to work. When it’s 105 outdoors. Because the AC may be working too well … and your desert-appropriate short sleeves and thin pants … leave you to feel as if you’re about to mount an Arctic expedition rather than a trek across desert sands.

The same holds true for movie theaters here.

In their desire to make sure you are not sweaty and uncomfortable, theater operators really crank up the AC. To the point that, yes, I’m shivering if I haven’t remembered to head off into the 90-degree night while clutching a pullover sweater.

Never helps when the theater is near-empty, as it was for “Date Night,” the fairly relentlessly unfunny comedy starring Tiny Fey and Steve Carell. (Yes, how is that possible?)

A theater that could seat about 200 people was nearly empty, and by the time the first dreary scene of drab domesticity was playing out (kids can wake you up early; no, really) … I was trying to shrink into my polo shirt in search of a bit of warmth.

What I remember most about the movie … is being cold. OK, and wondering how we were supposed to believe that the Tina Fey character ran around Manhattan all night while wearing spiked heels.

By the time the movie ended, I had moved into the weird mental zone a former co-worker here told us about back in Week 1, in-country. “Sometimes it’s nice to get outside … like getting into a warm bath.” Especially at night, when emerging from am AC-chilled workplace-turned-fridge.

I thought of that as I strided for the exit from the mall. “Gonna be warm out there!” And within five feet of the door, I was embraced by the thick and sultry, moon-lit night. Ah, nice.

And within 50 feet of the door, I was back to wondering how I would cool off again.

Given the option, yes, I would rather worry about warming up.  A sweater fits nicely inside my backpack, when I go to the office, and I can have it on in a trice.

You really don’t want to be checking the spelling of the names of Thai politicians when you’re soaked in sweat … or when you’re steamed at the producers who managed to make Fey and Carell the least compelling couple in America since June and Ward Cleaver.