Brrrr.... a moment of clarity
My furnace stopped working last night. I woke this morning, turned on the heat, and realized it did not magically start working again overnight.
Coming from a family of heating and air conditioning people, I make one phone call to my step dad. He not only knows what is wrong, but has the part needed to fix it.
He will eat breakfast and be right over.
For a brief moment, I was like EAT BREAKFAST? My mercury is dropping and you can't come right now??
As I sit here in my below 0 house, I realize how fortunate it I am. One phone call, and a two hour wait and I will soon be warm again. No money out of my pocket. The pay will be a cup of coffee and some blueberry scones. How can I be anything more than grateful for that? Thank Gawd my family was not in the pool business.
As I sit here freezing, my mind wandered to the homeless. (as it often does). There are people who may have slept outside last night. No one is coming to fix their heater.It's possible someone died last night due to the freezing conditions. They have no where to go during the day to get warm.
All I have to do is put on extra coats and gloves, which I have plenty of, and wait it out a couple of hours. Not too bad.
Sometimes, it takes something like no heat for a minute to make me realize how lucky I really am in comparision to some. I feel bad for being pissed my dad had to eat before rushing over here.
But I do wish they would hurry..............BRRRRRR.
jb
posted by jb @ 9:55 AM
3 comments
3 Comments:
Because you have much more grace than me, you didn't say, "Breakfast!? WTF!??? I'm FREEZING HERE!!!!" You reflected on social depravity and your own value system, and turned a time-sensitive problem into a beautiful zen meditation. If it were me one would have found an abundance of swear words in my post.
-S xo
I was shocked to read this entry as JUST LAST WEEK we had a very similar experience! I came home from preschool drop-off and went down to work in my craft studio. My hands were freezing, but the studio is in an unheated room in the basement. I went to preschool pickup and came home. An hour later, I was still shivering. Looked at the thermostat- 56 degrees. Long story short, through some internet sleuthing, and many phone calls (HVAC people don't generally sell parts to the public- what a racket!) I found one person in Portland who would sell it to us. My GC came home, saw me in my hat, mittens, fleece robe over my clothes in the house, put in the piece and VOILA- HEAT! $70 for the part, 20 mins. for GC to fix it, as opposed to the 24 hours/$210 I was quoted to have a "professional" come out.
I did reflect on how wimpy I am, and I too felt gratitude that this was a rare occasion as opposed to a way of life.
But in truth, mostly I was thinking that we would have to check into a hotel...maybe one that also serves breakfast...
2kool4skool
Will there ever be another post?
-S
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