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March of the suburban penguins
(by Tracy Beckerman - March 19, 2008)
I woke up and it was cold. So cold that I could see my breath.
Considering that I was in my bed, in my house, and not camping in an igloo in the
Arctic Circle , I thought this probably wasn’t a good thing.
“The house is cold,” I said to my husband when I found him downstairs.
“Yes, it is.”
“Do we have heat?”
“Apparently not,” he responded.
“Why don’t we have heat?”
“The furnace died,” he said matter of factly.
Even I, house-ignoramus, knew that “furnace” and died” are two words that should never be used in the same sentence together.
I took note of the fact that it was officially the coldest day of the year, and the forecast was for another week of frigid temperatures. I decided this was either a good time to take up a cold weather hobby, such as ice sculpting in my living room, or to get the furnace fixed. Since I’m not that good with an ice pick, I opted for the repair. However, when the heating guys came, the news was grim.
“You can’t fix it?” asked my husband.
“Nope,” said the first heating guy.
“What if you tried to fix it?” asked my husband.
“It could short out and burn the house down.”
“At least it would be warmer in here,” I said optimistically.
“You need a new furnace,” said the second heating guy.
“How much?”
“About six.”
“Hundred?” I asked hopefully.
“Thousand,” said the heating guy.
My husband turned blue. I knew it wasn’t from the cold. We decided that living like Eskimos for the remainder of the winter wasn’t really an option since my mukluks were already packed away and we were about seven dogs shy of a sled team. So we made an appointment for a brand new furnace to be delivered and installed the next day. In the meantime, I decided to do some laundry to keep warm. But curiously, when I got to the top of the stairs with the clean clothes, I heard the sound of water flowing. Lots of water. From a place where water doesn’t normally flow.
I followed the sound to my daughter’s closet, flung open the door, and found a river running through it.
Did I mention that it was raining outside? Hard? And, as evidenced by the water streaming from my daughter’s ceiling, apparently it was raining inside, as well.
“The good news is the heat isn’t really an issue anymore because it’s not as cold out as we thought it was,” I said to my husband when I called him and gave him the news.
“How do you figure?”
“If it was really cold, it would be snowing in our daughter’s bedroom closet, not raining.”
“Great.”
As the furnace guys made their way out, the roof guys came in. They patched, they plugged, and then they said they would have to come back the next day and lay some expensive new roof.
Five minutes after they left, the cleaning lady walked into the room.
“Mrs. Beckerman, the roof is leaking,” she informed me.
“I know, in the closet.” I responded.
“No,” she said. “In the kids’ bathroom.”
I raced upstairs to the bathroom and saw a stream pouring down from around the skylight.
Maybe an igloo wouldn’t be such a bad idea.
Tracy Beckerman will sign copies of her new book, “Rebel Without a Minivan” at Borders Bookstore, Garden State Plaze, 2 p.m., Saturday, March 29.
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