“Faster, you! Work faster!” I snarled.
“Please, master Sam,” my furnace begged me (with a British accent). “I cannot work any harder than I am.”
“Nonsense,” my voice sneered like the lash of a whip. “You’ll work harder and you’ll like it.”
“Please, master, Sam,” the Daikin model gas furnace muttered. “Please…”
Now was not the time for mercy, dear reader. A low of -20. -40 if you account for the wind chill. The thermometer was set for 72 and it was only 66 degrees in my house. The boys were wrapped in blankets. My wife Katie’s electric heating pad covered her lap. And don’t get me started on the cats. Theo was an icicle and Meowalicious was frozen solid. The chill had crept in and my Daikin model gas furnace was the only thing keeping us from succumbing to this unexpected ice age.
“Push yourself, Daikin! Warm us. I demand it!”
The Daikin’s whimpers were drowned out by the howling wind.
***
Iowa City was hit by a blizzard a few weeks ago. According to my 85-year-old neighbor, this was the worst snowstorm he could remember in over 25 years. He told me this on my 7th round of shoveling the driveway. My kindly neighbor took pity on me and came over with his snow blower. Was there something funny about a man in his eighties helping me shovel my driveway? Of course there was. But who was I to turn down help? Especially after removing almost two feet of snow over the course of two days with naught but my humble shovel. Katie and Samson helped, but it was I, your humble 43-year-old author, who removed the lion’s share of the snow. Or bear’s share. Polar bear.
What a storm. They cancelled school three times the first week the boys were back after winter break. And then, as temperatures plummeted, they cancelled it again after Martin Luther King Jr. day. The boys barely remembered school. The amount of screen time they had during this blizzard was staggering. I’m worried they may have entered the Matrix. Me too. I did a lot of TV watching, video game playing, and anything-and-everything to avoid thinking about work.
That’s not entirely true. Katie and I completed a few puzzles. And I spent much of the storm outside with my aforementioned shovel. Still, there’s only so many ways to distract yourself when you’re snowbound. Snow blind. Snow dazed. Inundated by snow.
Incidentally, I probably need to get my furnace checked. It was 62 inside the first night after the temperature dropped. I gave up on the sunroom. Closed the door. Put a space heater in the living room. Opened the blinds to let the sun in. Slowly, the thermostat climbed. Still, I ought to have poor Daikin serviced. If it is still standing after the storm is over. If I’m still standing after this snowpocalypse.
***
“Are you warm yet, Master Sam?”
“No, mongrel! I’ll never be warm again thanks to you.”
“I’m doing the best I can, Master Sam, I surely am.”
“Your best isn’t good enough, fool. Warm faster!”
And here, at the end of this short blog, I’ll admit that this imagined conversation between my furnace and me is, in a word, disturbing. I might have gone a little stir-crazy. All work and no play make Jack a dull boy. Send therapists. Or money for a new furnace. Or rays of sun to put this icy storm to rest so we can get back to another semester, a little bit of a routine, and some interaction with the outside world. If you don’t send it for me, well, I implore you to send if for poor Daikin. I worry about their constitution given the interactions illustrated above.
Samuel Jaye Tanner 