Frigid (part 3)

-- Continued from Frigid (part 2) --

 
7:00 a.m. (roughly speaking) -- I awoke under the fluffy, warm, down comforter of my daughter's bed. Anne was still asleep beside me, the dog curled at her feet in his doggie coat. Poor puppy. If his dew claw was not torn, he would almost certainly be snuggled under the blanket with us. As it was, he slept atop the covers at Anne's feet to protect his paw from potential further injury. Still, the warmth of the down beneath him must have felt good.

We had turned off the space heater for the night and I could feel a sharp contrast between the warmth under the comforter and the cold skin of my face. I looked over at the space heater. I wanted it on, but dreaded getting out of bed.

I closed my eyes for a moment to steel myself against the cold that I was about to enter. It needed to be done. The temperature in the house (and in the bedroom) was dropping with each passing moment and I needed to get up, feed Snickers and call an HVAC repairman.

I decided that the best thing was to just do it quickly. Gritting my teeth, I quickly pulled off the corner of the blanket and slipped out of bed, putting it back with hurried motions to keep the cold from seeping into its warm folds then taking three steps over to the space heater and turning it on full-blast. Oh, brr... It was cold.

At the bottom of the stairs, I checked the thermostat before letting the dog out. The inside temperature was 45 degrees (7.22 C). I took care of the dog, then made a bee-line for my phone book. I chose a random ad and dialed. A woman answered right away. I explained my situation and asked how long it would be before someone could come over to rescue me. I could hear her muffled voice as she turned to someone and asked, "Do you want to take this one before heading over to that one?"
Then she came back to me and said, "He'll be over in about 15 minutes."

I put Snickers back into Anne's room to cuddle with her and fifteen minutes later, "Al," the HVAC company's co-owner was knocking on my door. (The dog then went nuts and made sure Anne was up. LOL) As we walked down the stairs into the basement, Al said something like, "Let's take a look and get this heater running." It suddenly occurred to me, "Maybe I won't have to go to Mom and Dad's, after all! If he can fix this, we can just stay home for another week like we planned."

Well, it was a nice thought.  As it turns out, Al tried his fix according to the code that was flashing on my unit and what he did didn't work. My furnace's circuit board needed to be replaced. That meant ordering the part. The furnace was new but Guardian is an off brand and Al did not know who sold it, so he called one of his suppliers to ask.

The supplier's office was closed for the holidays. So Al called the people who had installed the furnace for me. They should know where they got it. Right? No dice. They also were closed. Third time is the charm according to the saying and the third supplier answered their phone. But they had no idea who sold Guardian parts. As far as they knew, Guardian furnaces were not being sold anywhere in the area. So Al pulled out his trusty smart-phone and looked up Guardian. He called the number. They were closed for the holidays. Big surprise.

-- To Be Continued --

Have you subscribed to the "A Writer's Blot" feed? Blogger has a free feed service so that you can keep up on new posts. Use the subscription links in the right side panel to add Author Beth Durkee's personal blog to your feed.