Since many of us are dealing with higher and higher heating fuel costs plus colder, frigid temperatures, I thought posting this would be appropriate. I was perusing a blogger that I really rarely read, but I was bored so here it is. It is actually a political blogg found here: http://www.iamtrex.com/ And I do feel his pain. We have an electric heater in the living room where it is livable. But when nature calls and one must wander to the far back areas of the house, it is best not to linger.

 

Somewhere back in October I set my thermostat at 65 degrees and vowed not to touch it for the rest of the winter.  My house is gas-heated and natural gas is particularly expensive this year, so I vowed that no matter what icy blasts might rattle the windows in their panes, I would just put on a sweater.  Even should the water in the toilet have to be cracked with an ice-pick each morning, I swore that I would simply buy some long-johns and tough it out.  (This is just one of the myriad of ways in which I am turning into my father, but that’s a whole other post.)

Tonight for the second night in a row it’s going down below 15 degrees Fahrenheit (WTF?  This is GEORGIA, people, not Michigan!) and dammit, I’m tired of shivering.  I think I’m going to crank the heater, wrap up in an electric blanket, and, like, bake something in my big old 1940’s stove until me and the cats are as toasty warm and cosseted as a bunch of pot plants in a hippie’s basement.  Yee haw.

I’ve been able to write this whole don’t-touch-the-thermostat thing off up to this point as a testament to the hardiness of my Scotch-Irish ancestors, a race of men bred to slog through hip deep mud behind plows on some godforsaken windy, misty island in the North Sea.  The kind of people who go outside in their shirtsleeves when it’s 33 degrees and misting and declare, “Aye, it’s a fine, soft day…”

But no, this is too much.  I’m sitting here in my flannel lined britches and long underwear, a t-shirt, a thermal long sleeve shirt, and a hoodie, a pair of thick, bunchy LL Bean socks, and I can still feel the cold licking through the cracks around the doors and windows.  In fact, it kind of feels downright personal.  Like someone I didn’t invite over who won’t go away.  My house wasn’t built for this.  Southern houses are built so that the heat drifts up into the rafters and cool air stays down closer to the floor.  (It’s really, really nice and warm in here about a foot over my head.)

Sorry, Dad.  I’m being a candy-ass and turning up the heat.