I was thankful on Thanksgiving Day. Really, I was. I was thankful for my family, my friends, my dogs, my home, my job and my health. And these were the blessings that I had planned to spend my Thanksgiving Day celebrating, along with roast turkey, green bean casserole and some NFL football. As it turned out, however, I had a whole host of unexpected things to be thankful for this year.
The night before Thanksgiving Bob and I had assumed our usual positions on the couch and were watching whatever was clogging up our DVR when I noticed that my nose was unusually cold. It was kind of brisk in our family room. I asked Bob to turn up the heat which he did assuring me that it was 68°, a perfectly comfortable temperature. A half an hour later my nose was still cold and so were my fingers. I checked the thermostat and discovered that Bob had been reading the “set to” number not the actual temperature. The actual temperature was 58°. Our furnace was not working. I was at that moment thankful that we had two furnaces and dual zoned heat. So, if anyone is keeping track, I started giving thanks early.
Thanksgiving morning I was decidedly thankful for layers; flannel shirt over sweatshirt over nightgown. It was a toasty 55° in my kitchen, the room in which I would be spending the majority of my day. We called the heating and air company, who had incidentally inspected our furnaces less than a month ago, and they sent us George. I was then thankful that George had opted to earn time and a half over gorging himself on poultry like the rest of us.
Bob ushered George down to the basement to inspect the previously inspected furnace. He summoned us a bit later with the prognosis. He could replace the “board” and that might solve the problem. The motor, he showed us, was also showing signs of rust and might need to be replaced in the near future. Then he threw in a carbon monoxide threat (the heating and air equivalent of weapons of mass destruction) for good measure. Or we could replace the furnace, which of course, is what he recommended. I was no longer thankful for George. I was thankful for restraint.
Presented with an $800 solution and a $5000 solution and no time for any real research, I was thankful for family members and friends who know about this stuff. Bob immediately called his brother, brother in law and a handy plumber friend. They all supported the $5000 solution. I was then quite thankful for home equity line of credit.
When the installers arrived at 4:30 (on Thanksgiving Day still), I was temporarily thankful for them. When it was discovered that the unit they brought couldn’t be installed in the space we had available, I was thankful my carving knife wasn’t in reach. The furnace that would fit in the space, was of course, more expensive. And about then I was glad that I didn’t have access to any firearms.
After promising to return the next day with our new more expensive furnace, the installers left (unharmed). I was thankful that they were gone and that we could finally enjoy our Thanksgiving dinner. I also gave thanks that the meal turned out well, though, no one would have dared to blame me for a dry turkey with all the goings on.
Truly I was all sorts of thankful this Thanksgiving, although I was admittedly a little homicidal too. I did give thanks for my family, my furballs, my friends, my home, my job and my health, as well as my fleece and my flannel. But in the end, I was just thankful that this Thanksgiving Day was finally over.