Frostbite

You know what’s fun? Insulation. At least that’s what I assume. I wouldn’t know from personal experience. Because personally, I live in the only house in America with no insulation. At least that is the only explanation I can come up with for how friggin’ cold it is in my house. As we speak (or blog) I have a space heater sitting on my desk, a mere foot from my face. And I’m still cold. Now, before all you people chime in on how California has been called a lot of things, but cold isn’t one of them, let me cut you off by saying that you are morons for living in places where you have to unbury your car from snow every morning. But your illogical choice of residence has nothing to do with how friggin’ cold it is in my house. And just so you know it’s not all sunshine and poppies here in California. It rained once last week. I barely pulled through. Feel free to donate to our local American Red Cross, they are helping us through this difficult time. Perhaps they will assist me in paying the parking ticket I got when I decided to park at a 30 minute meter for 4 hours and then decided it was way too wet to go put more quarters in.

Yet I digress. I’m sorry, the cold is inhibiting my ability to formulate intelligent thoughts. So I’ll just go back to bitching about how cold it is in my house. I’m not exactly sure why it’s so cold in here. We have a heater. Every room has a little thing in the ceiling that theoretically should distribute the heat. But they do not. There is only one distributor that actually functions, and that one is in the upstairs bathroom. Which is wonderful when you get out of the shower, but after those 2 minutes it kinda loses its wonder.

Last year we spent the better part of the winter season baffled over how it was that our heater was on, air was coming out and yet our hands and toes were still numb. We thought maybe it was because the house is so big (our ceilings are crazy high) and maybe the heat just can’t fill the whole house. But then we wondered why we were being punished for having high ceilings and wondered if other people with high ceilings couldn’t feel their toes either. Then one day my roommate’s high heel somehow cracked through a hole in our hardwood floors downstairs. And there was nothing below the hardwood floors, just air. Our house sits up off the ground and for some reason the only thing between us and the unknown darkness below is one layer of hardwood floors. Does that seem right? Shouldn’t there be some sort of something that keeps the cold air from coming up through our floors? And let’s not even get started on the random wildlife that could start making their way into our home. Actually, nevermind, no wildlife in their right mind would want to stay in this cold house.

The best, bestest part of our tale of advanced frostbite was that, despite the fact that we had to dress in four layers of clothes inside our home, we still got an electricity bill that was nearly $200. Yeah. That was fun. And that was also about the time we invested in space heaters and gave up on the hope of heat coming from our ceilings.

Now this year we have run into another problem. Well, I don’t think it’s a problem, but the The Roommate seems to have concerns.

“Dawn! When I got up this morning I could see that your room was glowing.”
“And…”
“And that means that you had your space heater on while you were sleeping.”
“And…”
“That’s not safe!”
“How is that not safe?”
“It could have an electrical short and burn up the whole house.”
“And none of the other 45 things I have plugged in in my room could have an electrical short and burn up the whole house?”
“None of the other things in your room exist solely to produce heat. That’s what heaters do. Make things hot. And when things get hot they burn.”
“Well, that’s just silly. Why hasn’t it burned up the whole house all the times I’ve run it for hours next to me while I was awake?”
“If you are awake you’d see it catch on fire and be able to put it out. But if you’re asleep you can’t see it and especially you, because you have such bad hearing, it’s not safe when you sleep.”
“What does my hearing have to do with detecting fire?”
“You couldn’t hear it as it whipped and crackled.”
“Whipping and crackling are like the least effective ways to identify fire.”
“Didn’t you hear about the TV anchor who just burned up in his house?”
“What station?”
“In San Francisco.”
“Uh, I don’t live in San Francisco, so no I haven’t heard of him.”
“Every day, I’m serious, every single day I hear about a house fire where everyone burns up.”
“You need to listen to a different radio station.”
“I’m serious.”
“You’re seriously misinformed if you think that all those people burned up because of space heaters.”
“Haven’t you heard of the lady who died because her electrical blanket caught on fire?”
“I’m not so much sleeping with the space heater on top of me.”
“You aren’t going to listen to me are you?”
“No. But I’ll be sure to text message you if the house catches on fire.”
“Well, my batteries are still out in my smoke alarm, so I’m gonna need all the warning I can get.”
“And I couldn’t hear my alarm if it went off, so I think we’re pretty much screwed.”
“You suck.”
“Yes, but at least I can feel my toes.”