Freezing home in freezing #Santa Fe.

photo by Bob Benedetti

We let ourselves into our chilly home, which I expected to warm up rather quickly with our radiant heating system embedded in the floors. 

A quick search of the bedroom revealed that the rental company had neglected to deliver the mattress we ordered from them.  Because we were planning on using that as our bed, we had no place to sleep.

The home seemed large, empty, beautiful and freezing.  I played with the heating system for a couple of minutes, but I could not get the pilot light to stay lit.  It would go on with a “whooomp” and then, almost as quickly, go out. 

Since I only knew about the heating system because of a rapid, rudimentary run-through given me by the former owner the day before he left this house forever (I’m not sure, but I believe he was happily giggling as he departed), I knew I was dealing with some sort of gas heating system that needed a pilot light.  If the pilot light went off, but the gas continued to flow, we could be on the verge of blowing ourselves up.   

Because of the fear of an explosion, which would certainly put a damper on the visit, I proceeded cautiously.  Normally, when faced with a technical problem of this magnitude, I would do what males have done for generations: push every button, twist every knob, flip every switch up and down until something happens.

My wife – and most women – see this as a distinctly male form of madness.  My worst example of this kind of behavior occurred a few years before on Lake Chapin, which empties into Lake Michigan.  We had bought a pontoon boat and, at the end of our first jaunt in it, I ran it aground on a sand bar.  I successfully backed it out of trouble, but that sand bar was between our dock and us. 

I turned to Grace and suggested, “Well, the only thing to do is rev this sucker up as high as it will go, ram the sand bar at pontoon-boat warp speed, and attempt to skip over it.”  Please note that pontoon boats are not known for their speed and have been left in the wake of ore-laden barges.

Grace, whose eyes had widened to the size of coffee cup saucers, responded to the idea that, at the end of its maiden voyage, we turn our pontoon boat into the equivalent of skipping rocks on the water with as much equanimity as she could muster under the circumstances, “ARE YOU INSANE?”

Her best friend, Sandi, who was with us in the boat, later whispered to her, “I don’t know how you kept that much control.  I’d have taken off the outboard motor and brained him with it.”  But then Sandi had a lifelong problem continuing long-term relationships with men.

We got out of the boat, lightened its load enough so that it floated higher in the water and walked it to our dock.  I will never know if skipping a pontoon boat over a sand bar would work.

After struggling for more two hours to figure out what was wrong with the heating system and feeling the cold in the marrow of my bones, I saw a tag on the heater that proudly carried the name of the person who installed this instrument of cold torture.  Defeated, I promised myself to call the guy in the morning.