The overnight temperature would be dipping into the 30s.
“Time to add a quilt to the bed,” the weather announcer said with a smile. “It’s gonna be nippy tonight!”
John harrumphed from his end of the couch. Not in this house. His bed is already weighted down with pounds of blankets, and has been since October 1—his official hibernation date.
Now, I know John is a skinny man. We are like Jack Spratt and his wife…and my habit of “eating no lean” evidently insulates me like a puffer coat. I sweat in the summer and sweat in the winter. It’s just how it is.
Over the years, I’ve learned that we will never agree on comfort. I dress for balmy weather every day indoors and put on real clothes to venture into the God-given atmosphere outside our sweatbox.
I complain in both blatant and passive-aggressive ways throughout the year. My go-to hint is to lift my hair with a wilted forearm and fan my face with the opposite hand. He used to notice. Not anymore.
I knew what would happen when it got “nippy” outside.
John, completely dressed in his usual flannel shirt, jeans and baseball cap, will emerge from the bedroom on little cat feet and pad his way down the shadowy hall.
He’ll stop at the little rectangle on the wall and squint through his bifocals to affirm his body’s signal that it was frigid in the house. He’ll probably shiver to see a number without a “7” in front of it. Time for his seasonal adjustment from livable temperatures to blasting-warm air.
The little lid of the thermostat will creak a bit as he flips it down; John will place a weathered thumb against the “Heat/Cool” switch and apply pressure.
Click.
Now to change the temperature itself. The “up” and “down” buttons are colored to match their intent; red means I’ll be baking. Blue seldom gets action in any season here at our house.
His index finger will get to work. Red button. He’ll squish it. Up, up, up, the setting goes. Where it stops, nobody knows.
I know he’ll smile when he hears the pilot light whoosh to life on the furnace. He would not have felt more accomplished if he had chopped wood and toted it to a fireplace himself. His fingers brought heat!
All will be right with the house. Off he’ll scamper, down his well-worn path toward the coffee maker in the kitchen.
I woke up this morning to a home whose wallpaper is threatening to peel and hang listlessly in the sweltering blaze of heat; the furnace was chugging along like the boiler in a steam engine.
I trudged toward the thermostat in the hallway and stopped to check the new settings. 75 degrees.
Reaching out with a limp, sweaty finger, I clicked down the temperature, and headed toward the kitchen to pick a fight.
John was not in his usual coffee-drinking chair at the table. I saw a rectangle of scrap paper defaced with scribbled words that defy all logic:
“Gone for a walk. Beautiful morning!”
I’m sure he dressed in layers.
