“the furnace is broken AND we have no wood left for the woodstove. someone here isn’t prepared, karen”

I think most folks in the northern hemisphere would see the date on my post and think, hey, April is springtime! Warmer weather and sunshine and buttercups coming up! But (sad trombone) we live in Michigan and this is not the case. It’s been barely pushing mid-40’s F during the day and well below freezing at night and I came back from my walk yesterday covered in snow and soaking wet after being caught in a freezing squall. This is not helping the overall filthy mood of Michigan during the pandemic.

SO, fate being what it is, this is the time that my furnace decided to give up the ghost. It’s not unexpected. It’s from 1994 and honestly, I haven’t done a lick of maintenance on it since I moved in. I’ve barely remembered to replace the filter on any kind of normal basis and when I do so, there’s usually enough cat hair in there to spontaneously regenerate a fourth feline. Yes I feel guilty. But I’m paying the price now as my heat went out. For 24 hours it was 51 in my house. We used a space heater during the day, went to bed last night with hot-water bottles and pissed off (but warm) cats. The repair person came (decked out in full PPE and carrying disinfectant to wipe down everything he touched) and as he pointed out the leak (“HERE”), the condensation damage (“HERE”) and the almost-entirely-rusted-out-bolt-holding-something-together (“HERE”), the look in his eyes over his face mask was reproachful. He got it going, and I’m now luxuriating in blissful warmth, but when the blower motor started up he actually flinched.

“It’s not going to last the summer,” he said.

“It doesn’t NEED TO – it will be SUMMER,” I said, quite reasonably I thought.

“Yes but this is MICHIGAN,” he pointed out, as, on cue, a gentle sleet began to tap against the windowpane.

(The upside of wearing a mask, I’ve found, is that I can stick my tongue out at people and they don’t know I’m doing it. And yes – I am extremely fortunate that I can afford repairs and replacements, I am still working, and that this didn’t happen in say, January when getting by without heat would not have been possible without severe discomfort and possibly frozen pipes. He also consoled me with the fact that there are some really good specials running now. But let me have my moment of childish spite.)

So next week I will have another cadre of PPE-swathed repair people in to replace my furnace and take several thousand of my dollars in exchange for living in Michigan where you need a furnace in frigging July.

How’s your week going?