I need to preserve for the winter the feeling of darkness and the comfortable, perfect august warmth. Too hot for a blanket, perfect for lying on the bed and being comfortable. And the dark, which isn't even that oppressive, just... Warm as well.
Which reminds me why I am N.O.T. ready for cold weather. Do I want the pretty tree colors? Yes. Do I want football? Yes. Am I ready for snowy mountain views? Absolutely. Do I want it to be socially acceptable to drink three mugs of hot apple cider a day? Of course, I wait all year for that.
But I don’t like being cold and fall is the gate way to Hell winter.
WARNING: Swearing, ranting, and bitching to follow.
You see, I live in a three story townhouse. My thermostat is on the third floor. In the summer, this is great. Heat rises so my third floor is never hotter than Hades because my thermostat is right there, turning on the A/C.
In the winter though? Oh, the winter... Again, heat rises my loves. HEAT. FUCKING. RISES. This means my third floor is perfectly toasty and lovely (as long as I leave my bedroom doors open) but the second floor, where I spend most of my day is freezing cold. And my thermostat doesn’t know the rest of the house suffers, because it is on the third floor where things are hunky dory.
“Just get a space heater you whiny bitch” you might be thinking. I did. My floor plan is so awkwardly set up that the damn thing does not work how my raised-in-a-single-story-house-on-the-Gulf-Coast ass is accustomed to heaters working.
And Heaven bless my poor nose and toes when I have to go to the first floor. Also bless Sam, who has to listen to my whining while also suffering. Also, my poor dog who doesn’t get an escape and my poor guinea pig who gets relegated to the third floor, away from the human interaction she is accustomed to, because we have to turn the space heater off when we’re gone and at night for fear of burning down every house on this row. And she would die if she had to deal with the constant temperature changes.
“Ok, just stay on the third floor, you weirdo,” you might be thinking... This occurred to us as well. You see, the problem is that my dog, God bless his tiny little paws, is a herding dog. He has a strict schedule and a desire to make sure his “herd,” AKA the humans, are where they’re supposed to be. If the humans are on the third floor when it is clearly time for us to be on the second floor, he loses his tiny little puppy mind and does his best to chase us downstairs.
Also, the cable box and my flat screen are down here and if you’ll see the football statement above, I’m sure you can guess that I am unlikely to part with those two things during football season.
Turning the heater up does no good, it just turns the third floor into a furnace and thanks to some poor design mechanisms, very little of the heat ever touches the second floor.
My dog, the blanket thief, turns into a master criminal during the winter months. You leave a blanket for 5 seconds? It is now his, and while you were expected to share with him when you were the one using it, he will not return the favor.
And this, ladies and gentlemen, is why I am never taking my Aunt Megan up on that offer to move to bloody Minnesota.
