Datebook: Monday, June 18th ~ 2007
If my husband and I ever get a divorce, it will not be because of affairs, gambling, or incessant snoring. It will be because I am too hot.
Oh, not in the Paris Hilton iconic catch- phrase type of ‘hot’. ‘Hot’ as in-- my Ban Solid deodorant is failing, I have sweat running down the middle of back, and I am considering cutting my clothes off with scissors type of hot.
It is just barely approaching summer and the debacle of thermostat control has reared its ugly head again.
In the winter, my husband wants the climate set at a “comfortable” 68 degrees. I have found that it is easier to brush your teeth in water that has not started to crystallize but I gave up this argument years ago. I now wear layers of clothing, have flannel sheets, and eat soup with mittens on once we pass the winter solstice. I have even considered putting heated bricks under the covers like Jane Eyre but gave up on this idea once I discovered the fireplace is merely for “show” and actually sucks the heat from the rest of the house rendering the temperature 60 degrees in the uppermost corner bedroom.
The oddity of the situation is that in the summer we should then be able to reside in the same pleasant temperature we established in the winter—68 degrees. Not so. In a twist of conventional logic, the “correct” temperature for summer habitation (per my life partner) is 74 degrees.
This is not comfortable. My husband says that my inner-body thermostat has become mal-adjusted due to my decade of sitting in ice rinks.
This is the temperature that makes those red Christmas candles you left out all year start to melt and sway left in the candelabra. This is the temperature that makes ants pack up and head to an abode that has free utilities included in the rent. This is a temperature that almost sends you to Macy’s to buy a new bathing suit.
My husband swears his thermostat commandeering is founded in the principle of saving the environment. I suspect that it is grounded in the recent 50 percent electric rate hike.
Like any good wife I have offered helpful advice to assist in keeping our utility bills low. For example, he could skip watching golf tournaments every weekend on television, I mean really, every Sunday is the culmination of some Open, or Masters, or Classic, somewhere. He could actually wait until the ten o’clock news and find out the results with view the highlight reel. He could also forego his obsessions with “Family Guy”, and “Scrubs” reruns. With a bit of modification, we could probably have the thermostat down to 73 degrees at no additional cost.
I readily admit that we have become a spoiled nation. We like our comforts. Most of us did not grow up with them. My family did not have central air-conditioning in the house; my parents had a small window unit in their bedroom that they used without guilt to the exclusion of the rest of us, who sat in sweat-pooled puddles on vinyl kitchen clad chairs before the open ice-box door. (This would not happen today. Today parents would install units in children’s bedrooms to the exclusion of themselves, and take second jobs to get them oscillating air flow.) Our cars also did not have air conditioning. My sister and I craved trips in the backseat of the Corvair, risking dragonflies, bees, and discarded cigarette butts, just for that feeling of moving current. As a parent I often start the car five minutes before our departure so the vehicle will be at the right temperature when my kids enter.
It is true, we all get spoiled for our creature comforts and once we have them, we don’t want to give them back or give them up.
I proffer to you that if blood could boil it would probably be at about 100 degrees centigrade.
But I suspect it starts to roll a bit at 74 degrees Fahrenheit.
Life and marriage is about compromise and restructuring goals.
I have turned a blind eye to the luxury lawn tractor that sits in our shed that has halogen headlights (although I don’t recall any midnight grass snipping ever occurring on our lawn), cup holders, and a lumbar comfort seat. I have remained mum when my husband bought new golf irons that allegedly added ten yards to his fairway drives and I have been muted that greens fees are often 20 times the price of a movie admission.
I have compromised by living the life of a lumberjack in the winter and now that the heat index is approaching triple digits I would like to have the opportunity to feel as if I could sit and have a mint julep, so to speak, without the ice melting faster than the glaciers north of Greenland.
I am petitioning for 72 degrees and control of the thermostat during the summer months. Perhaps on my birthday in August I could even have a day at 70 degrees—I like to live right of the cusp of needing a sweater.
Anyway, those are my demands that I will give to the mediator.
Sometimes being “hot” is not all that cool.
Mombo
Oh, not in the Paris Hilton iconic catch- phrase type of ‘hot’. ‘Hot’ as in-- my Ban Solid deodorant is failing, I have sweat running down the middle of back, and I am considering cutting my clothes off with scissors type of hot.
It is just barely approaching summer and the debacle of thermostat control has reared its ugly head again.
In the winter, my husband wants the climate set at a “comfortable” 68 degrees. I have found that it is easier to brush your teeth in water that has not started to crystallize but I gave up this argument years ago. I now wear layers of clothing, have flannel sheets, and eat soup with mittens on once we pass the winter solstice. I have even considered putting heated bricks under the covers like Jane Eyre but gave up on this idea once I discovered the fireplace is merely for “show” and actually sucks the heat from the rest of the house rendering the temperature 60 degrees in the uppermost corner bedroom.The oddity of the situation is that in the summer we should then be able to reside in the same pleasant temperature we established in the winter—68 degrees. Not so. In a twist of conventional logic, the “correct” temperature for summer habitation (per my life partner) is 74 degrees.
This is not comfortable. My husband says that my inner-body thermostat has become mal-adjusted due to my decade of sitting in ice rinks.
This is the temperature that makes those red Christmas candles you left out all year start to melt and sway left in the candelabra. This is the temperature that makes ants pack up and head to an abode that has free utilities included in the rent. This is a temperature that almost sends you to Macy’s to buy a new bathing suit.
My husband swears his thermostat commandeering is founded in the principle of saving the environment. I suspect that it is grounded in the recent 50 percent electric rate hike.
Like any good wife I have offered helpful advice to assist in keeping our utility bills low. For example, he could skip watching golf tournaments every weekend on television, I mean really, every Sunday is the culmination of some Open, or Masters, or Classic, somewhere. He could actually wait until the ten o’clock news and find out the results with view the highlight reel. He could also forego his obsessions with “Family Guy”, and “Scrubs” reruns. With a bit of modification, we could probably have the thermostat down to 73 degrees at no additional cost.
I readily admit that we have become a spoiled nation. We like our comforts. Most of us did not grow up with them. My family did not have central air-conditioning in the house; my parents had a small window unit in their bedroom that they used without guilt to the exclusion of the rest of us, who sat in sweat-pooled puddles on vinyl kitchen clad chairs before the open ice-box door. (This would not happen today. Today parents would install units in children’s bedrooms to the exclusion of themselves, and take second jobs to get them oscillating air flow.) Our cars also did not have air conditioning. My sister and I craved trips in the backseat of the Corvair, risking dragonflies, bees, and discarded cigarette butts, just for that feeling of moving current. As a parent I often start the car five minutes before our departure so the vehicle will be at the right temperature when my kids enter.
It is true, we all get spoiled for our creature comforts and once we have them, we don’t want to give them back or give them up.
I proffer to you that if blood could boil it would probably be at about 100 degrees centigrade.
But I suspect it starts to roll a bit at 74 degrees Fahrenheit.
Life and marriage is about compromise and restructuring goals.
I have turned a blind eye to the luxury lawn tractor that sits in our shed that has halogen headlights (although I don’t recall any midnight grass snipping ever occurring on our lawn), cup holders, and a lumbar comfort seat. I have remained mum when my husband bought new golf irons that allegedly added ten yards to his fairway drives and I have been muted that greens fees are often 20 times the price of a movie admission.
I have compromised by living the life of a lumberjack in the winter and now that the heat index is approaching triple digits I would like to have the opportunity to feel as if I could sit and have a mint julep, so to speak, without the ice melting faster than the glaciers north of Greenland.
I am petitioning for 72 degrees and control of the thermostat during the summer months. Perhaps on my birthday in August I could even have a day at 70 degrees—I like to live right of the cusp of needing a sweater.
Anyway, those are my demands that I will give to the mediator.
Sometimes being “hot” is not all that cool.
Mombo
posted by ice-dance.com @ 7:32 AM
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