This time of year Aaron likes to keep the thermostat at fifty. I think it's freezing and when I complain he reminds me that 1. It's not that cold because he is perfectly comfortable in his twelve year old, paper thin t-shirt and 2. We're saving energy. I can argue with the first but I have to agree with the second, so I pile on two or three sweatshirts and pull on several pairs of socks. In all fairness, I made him suffer through the summer without air conditioning. Which has me thinking of this great poem:
I Do, I Will, I Have
How wise I am to have instructed the butler
to instruct the first footman to instruct the second
footman to instruct the doorman to order my carriage;
I am about to volunteer a definition of marriage.
Just as I know that there are two Hagens, Walter and Copen,
I know that marriage is a legal and religious alliance entered
into by a man who can't sleep with the window shut and a
woman who can't sleep with the window open.
Moreover, just as I am unsure of the difference between
flora and fauna and flotsam and jetsam,
I am quite sure that marriage is the alliance of two people
one of whom never remembers birthdays and the other
never forgetsam,
And he refuses to believe there is a leak in the water pipe or
the gas pipe and she is convinced she is about to asphyxiate
or drown,
And she says Quick get up and get my hairbrushes off the
windowsill, it's raining in, and he replies Oh they're all right,
it's only raining straight down.
That is why marriage is so much more interesting than divorce,
Because it's the only known example of the happy meeting of
the immovable object and the irresistible force.
So I hope husbands and wives will continue to debate and
combat over everything debatable and combatable,
Because I believe a little incompatibility is the spice of life,
particularly if he has income and she is pattable.
Ogden Nash
8 comments:
In my defense, the thermostat can only be turned down to 55, not 50. And usually, when Katy is home, I turn it up.
Katy is correct though in that turning down the thermostat in winter saves energy. It actually takes more energy to heat a house than it does to cool it off. Remember Jimmy Carter putting on his sweater in the White House? A good idea for us all. I'll keep wearing t-shirts though, at least until the pipes freeze.
50...even 55 is very cold! I'd be breaking furniture to burn in the living room.
wow, no heat in the winter, no cold in the summer, I value my comfort way too much.
Aaron - I was under the opposite impression. I thought it cost more to cool your house than to heat it. I think it may depend on if your house uses gas or electric to heat and when you live in an apartment building you are also affected by the temperature of the units next door to you. handful of variables.
But that poem is funny.
I think it also depends on how much you are attempting to change the temperature. If you live in cooler climate, you often have to raise the temperature more than you would usually cool it. Getting to 70 from 90 is easier than getting to 70 from 30.
I'm sure the considerations that you mentioned matter too. Especially the gas thing. That seems to be getting more and more expensive.
But let no one think that you should turn the heat off! Right Chelsea? Otherwise pipes can freeze and burst and that's no fun for anyone.
Steve's always hotter than I am too, so he'll be comfortable and I'll be bundling up under blankets, socks and sweat pants... these days i try to convince him that Eliza needs more warmth to try to get him to raise the temperature some.
I love the Ogden Nash piece. This is a fun contradiction to (who was it Tolstoy? who said) all happy families are alike, it's unhappy families that are different? I don't remember it exactly, but I think of Rene and Don and the crazy fights they had but how devoted they were to one another. Most of us "happy couples" have crazy, unique things that we frequently skirmish over.
That's a marvelous piece. My decision to marry Quinn was very deliberate, knowing, as I thought I did, all the differences between us. And I was right; we are very different and yet we make it work because we have always been such good friends and we respect and love each other. But I remember with some fondness the initial shocks we had about where we differed. There are still a few surprises, which keeps things interesting.
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