Maple Avenue Freeze-Out!

Two nights before Christmas in Kansas and I'm sitting here writing this post bundled up like Ralphie's brother in the film, A Christmas Story. 

It's nine degrees below zero outside. Snow is on the ground and isn't going anywhere. The windchill is negative 27 or some other ungodly number. The coldest night we've experienced in years. And our furnace decided to conk out this afternoon.

Merrrrrrry Christmas! 

At least to our HVAC guy who will be collecting a huge, Christmas bonus check ("Why, thank you guys! It's a Christmas miracle! For only $399.99 extra, I can vacuum your coils. No extra charge over the initial $399.99. My treat!") 

Whenever or if he should decide to come out, that is. They're pretty busy right now.

I should've heeded my earlier Christmas haunting. Several hours ago, I had gone into the basement (can't remember why) and swore I heard the furnace singing various Christmas carols via an angelic choir. I thought..."Whoa...time to start drinking," and wrote it off to my typical nuttiness.

Word to the wise: ALWAYS heed your Christmas hauntings.

After some consideration, I told my wife, "Baby, it's cold inside."

She poo-poohed me, didn't believe me, knowing that I run a lot colder than her as usual, just par for the course.

So I stole a peek at the thermostat. Good Lawd, it read 64 degrees! And it had been set at 70. Something was up. Definitely NOT the temperature.

"Honey, we got a problem," I bellowed like a dying dinosaur during the Ice Age.

In the basement, we approached the furnace, pressed buttons, pushed gadgets, twisted knobs, fiddled with ding-dongs, and prayed a little bit we wouldn't blow ourselves up. Finally my wife said, "Huh. I think we have a problem."

Time for a brewski. Snikt!...Tsssss...

The call was in. The soonest the HVAC tyrants could get somebody out here was tomorrow morning. No particular time, natch. "But...but...," I whined, "we have like a bi-annual subscription with them to check our junk out. We're preferred customers!"

The answer to that was...too bad. With space heaters blasting, the thermostat now read 58 degrees in the house.

Alcohol is my friend.

"That'll just make you colder," said my common-sense wife.

No fan of common sense, I devised a plan (okay, my wife mostly devised it, but I was there!). Not only did we worry about our own freezability, but we had two dogs that I didn't care to see turned into pupsicles. Hell, they didn't even want to go out this morning (or all day). Can't blame them.

We pinpointed the warmest room in the house (and by that, I mean now reading a comfy 54 degrees), "Tom." (We named our two spare bedrooms "Tom" and "Jerry," much easier to remember than calling them by the pesky directions they face.) The plan was set and now onto the execution.

Alas, the damn futon never wants to work right, usually ending up in the two halves coming apart. Worse than any piece of furniture you might (un)assemble from Ikea. Finally, after many curse words and much back-ache and the ultimate worst possible fate (*gasp*), referring to the manual, we put it back together again.

(TO BE READ LIKE AN AIRPLANE PILOT): "Ahhhhh, now we're sitting at a cool 52 degrees....Uhhhhhh, you might want to consider bundling up, it's ahhhhhh gonna drop to the single digits in your room....ummmmmm...your stewardess is coming by with the cocktail cart, so please be sure and...errrrrrrr...tip."

Pass the wine.

Our electric blanket was stripped from our bed upstairs and moved down to "Tom." Another electric blanket was put on the floor, dog beds atop it.

At 50 degrees, I swear I can see my breath. Merrrrrrrry Christmas!

My wife says, "Get over it. Pretend it's like winter camping."

This...

This was the craziest thing I'd heard in a while. Anyone who knows me totally understands I don't camp. Especially in the Winter. I'm not insane. My idea of camping is a cabin (not too far from a bar and convenience store and pizza delivery) with WiFi and a hot tub.

Where the hell's that bottle of wine? Merci Chrimmy.

In the pursuit of true journalism, never leaving my dedicated readers in the lurch, I'm now sitting in a frigid living room (temperature now in the 40's), delivering the truth with frozen, unfeeling fingers and a head full of alcohol.

Mister Chriminee everbuddy!