My beloved grandfather was a Scotsman. According to my (Hungarian) grandmother, that was why he was so stingy–ahem, frugal. He believed that it saved electricity if you only opened the refrigerator while it was running, so who knows how many times they skirted food poisoning because my grandmother left the mayo on the counter until she heard it start?
I don’t do that, but I do have a great resistance to turning the furnace on (and the AC, in summer, ask my poor wilting roommate.) I know waiting saves me money, you see. Money that I’d really prefer to spend on Christmas. Especially this year.
Luckily the roomie is, as we call her, a delicate Northern flower, and actually prefers things cold.
So anyway, I have a tiny space heater in my room for when the chill gets a bit too much. I’m often cold in the mornings, of course, but also early afternoon. For some reason heading into evening, I tend to throw off the sweaters and turn the heater down.
The operative word there is “down.”
Last night at some point, I turned the heater down and went back to writing. Sometime later I took the kid’s dog (she was out, and he’s a wee thing, gets cold easy) and crawled into my oh-so-comfy adjustable bed. You know the ones with a remote control that folds you up all nice and relaxed?
I had been in bed half an hour (just finishing an episode of Bob Ross painting a water wheel) when the heater kicked back on.
Oh no! I hate a warm room for sleeping! I pondered getting up to turn it off, but the dog was snuggled in, and the bed was so comfy, and if I got the dog excited about going outside then I wouldn’t get back to bed soon…oh well, I’d turned it down pretty far; it should turn off soon.
Friends, I don’t think it turned off at all.
I woke up hot, the heater running. I kicked the pillow that had landed on my feet off, shoved the sheet and bedspread, which are my only blankets as I am a furnace in the night, down, and managed to fall back asleep.
I woke up hot, with the dog having come up from under the covers by my feet, to lie between my arm and my side–snuggled in, but not under the covers. I tried to shift him away from me, wriggled until I could kick the covers down to my knees, and texted the kid to turn the heater off when she came for the dog. (He gets all excited when he hears her and won’t settle, that’s why.) It was almost midnight, surely she would be home soon.
I woke up hot, to the dog getting so warm he got up and went to sleep on the far corner of the bed on top of the covers. I kicked the blankets off my feet, and remembered I have a fan with a remote. Grabbed the remote and finally FINALLY I didn’t feel like I was dying.
Why didn’t I get up and turn the heater off? My friends, at that point, I was committed. Never change horses midstream. Or something. I think actually I didn’t wake up enough at any point to realize that was still an option. And besides! The kid was coming to the rescue any minute now!
Finally, at a time I don’t actually know, she did come, and turn the heater off and fetch the dog. I pulled my covers up, left the fan on, and blissfully slept the remainder of the night.
So guess who’s getting a heater with a remote here soon?
In other news, the work on my paranormal book continues. I’ve got them all scattered; now to bring them together. It’s been great fun, but I still gotta write the end.
That seems to be the only way I’ll be finding out what the ending is.
Feel free to drop your space heater WITH A REMOTE recommendations.