Being a Grown-Up

I think everyone goes through a time when they can't wait to grow up and do things whatever way they want to. They can make all their own decisions and deal with things however they want to. I remember doing that. I remember loving my first year in college because I was finally on my own. I could eat cold cereal for every meal of every day if I wanted to. It was so great. Then, after you've done it for a while it loses some of it's sparkle. What's for dinner is now a much less exciting question for me than it was when I was 18.

Then you get a real dose of making your own decisions and dealing with things however you want. Take today for example. Last weekend Daniel turned down our water heater because our gas bill was through the roof. This detail wont come back up until the end of the story though. Then yesterday, when we came home from church all of the heat vents were blowing arctic air continually. The pilot light had gone out on our furnace. Daniel tried to light it 4-5 times periodically three times throughout the evening without any luck. So we bundled up on the sofa under our big comforter and watched TV until bed. Luckily some friends brought over three space heaters for over the night time because we didn't want our pipes to freeze. Then this morning Daniel wrote down on a piece of paper exactly what he'd done with the furnace, gave me a kiss, and went off to school, leaving Charlotte and I to fend for ourselves in a house that was colder than 50 degrees. I say colder than 50 degrees because that's the lowest our thermostat registers and the needle was below it. I called the heating company that installed our AC last summer and had a repair man come over. He came and looked at the furnace, then gave me the news that we needed a new one just as Daniel's class was starting and thus couldn't answer the phone.

So as a grown-up I had to make the decision of what of the many options of furnaces to get all on my own and to try and get the best deal out of the guy as possible. Luckily I could talk to my mother-in-law a few times so I at least had a long distance second opinion. Also, Charlotte and I had to be warm so I hung blankets over the doors and gathered the space heaters in one room to heat it up for the day and wait for the installers to finish installing the furnace. When the installers came one of them actually said to me, "I think it's warmer outside of your house than in." Gee, thanks. The installation wasn't completed until about 5 PM.

When Daniel got home I told him all about it and also that my shower was frigid even though I had brought a space heater into the tiny bathroom with me. He said I had chosen the wrong space heater, which was true, but then he went down to look at what setting he'd put the water heater on. Apparently when he'd lowered the temperature he'd had to re-light the pilot light. Then he had never turned the knob back to heat. Not only had I sat in a freezing cold house all day, I'd also taken a shower with water heated by the pilot light. It was a long, long day of being a grown-up. I think I'd like to go back to asking my mom what's for dinner.