Alternative Heating Sources

When you are young nothing makes you happier than seeing your name on a HUGE present under the tree. Big = Badass when you are young. And while that equation still holds true for some things in adulthood, presents aren’t really one of them. Unless of course the present is as big as say, a car, then that would be pretty badass. But is would also mean that you living room was obscenely large.

So this year when I saw a big present under the tree with my name on it I was momentarily psyched. The kid in me automatically thought it had to be something cool, simply because it was big. Then the adult in me reminded me that the only things that come in big boxes for adults usually belong in a kitchen. And the kitchen makes me neither holly or jolly, so my temporary “That’s Badass!” was immediately replaced by “Cooking, my ass!”

Come Christmas day I found that my parents weren’t insane and hadn’t bought me anything for the kitchen. (They have long ago given up on me ever being able to feed myself with anything that isn’t acquired while I’m sitting in a running automobile.) Instead my present was an equally tantalizing Space Heater. You know, because in addition to not being able to feed myself I’m also living in the coldest house in America (quiet Michigan). They done raised me right.

I set up the space heater downstairs so that my guests would stop catching hypothermia while visiting. (It’s bad enough that I feed them Chicken McNuggets for dinner parties.) The other night when my home became the collapsing point of several drunk people I surrounded their passed out bodies with space heaters to keep them warm. I plugged in the heater my parents gave me and turned it on. I then went to move it closer to the sleeping people, knowing full well that it was a good possibility they were already frozen to death. When I picked up the heater it began buzzing not unlike someone was being electrocuted to death in the living room. By the way one of the drunk people jumped, terror in her hazy eyes, I thought perhaps it had somehow managed to electrocute her.

“What the hell is that?!”
“My space heater.”
“Is it electrocuting you?”
“No it just sounds that way.”
“Why? Why, why would it make that horrible sound?”
“I think it’s trying to alert me to the fact that it is no longer on solid ground. My other space heater just turns itself off when it’s not on solid ground.”
“Maybe this one does too. After it electrocutes you.”
I lay the heater on its side. It continues to let out the most horrendous sound I’ve ever heard. It also continues to stay on. And the really intoxicated people continue to sleep right through it.

So then. If I’m not in the room when the space heater falls over then I may return to my home to find it up in flames, but with a really handy buzzing sound coming from inside. That seems like the best design ever, does it not? Of course if the house went up in flames our house would no longer be the coldest house in America. So it’s getting the job done, one way or another. If that ain’t a badass present, I just don’t know what is.