A year ago at this time, I was living in a motorhome in Florida. Today I am living in a crockpot on Shelter Island. Thanks a lot, Corona.
For nearly two decades we’ve hit the road and headed south before the first frost and there was a reason for that. It had nothing to do with liking Florida better than Shelter Island. We don’t.
And it wasn’t about getting away from what’s familiar. We like what’s familiar. But we had to leave Shelter Island in order to save our marriage.
Before I explain, let me be the one to point out that sometimes, in an effort to boost my side of an argument I may exaggerate just a skosh. You know, stretch the truth so far that it morphs into the realm of “alternative facts,” but I’m not doing that now.
Well, maybe just a little.
My husband and I have spent more than 53 years together. We seldom fight — oh, we disagree about lots of things — but mostly they’re just shrug-it-off disagreements. The kind that ends with me saying, “Okay. You’re wrong, but, whatever.”
Sadly, that delightful spirit of compromise and cooperation flies out the window when the cold air comes in and we find ourselves at odds over the thermostat setting.
Some like it cold
It’s my own fault. I knew right off the bat that we were not temperature compatible when we were first dating. He’d turn on the car’s heater and I’d have to stick my head out the passenger window.
He thought I never snuggled close to him because I was demure and shy. But no, I am neither. It’s just that he likes hot air and I like cold air.
So what did I do? I married him anyway.
While I prefer a healthier, cooler temperature setting, one recommended by Dr. Spock, Dr. Suess and Dr. Fauci, not to mention every global-warming expert in the entire universe, the man in this house likes warm air.
My crockpot, when set on low, is cooler than our house!(Stretching it here, but still, a marginal alternative fact.)
I blame his father for this. His dad’s name was Herbert, but his nickname was “Stovie.” That’s because he liked to stand right up against any source of heat; a woodstove, a blazing fireplace, an open oven door.
Like father, like son, or plant a potato, get a potato. Something like that.
During the years when we were raising our kids, the thermostat was not a big issue. Maybe we were focused on other things like jobs and raising a family.
Besides, when you have kids in and out of the house, either the back door, the front door, or the refrigerator door is always open. Then our kids left.
When those doors stayed shut and we were overheating an empty nest our temperature incompatibility issue resurfaced, big time.
Some like it hot
I can remember once, when I was in the Legion’s winter bowling league, coming home from the bowling alley at about 11 PM on a November night. I opened the door and got hit by a blast of hot air that nearly knocked me off the porch.
It was like walking into the exhaust from a jet engine. Okay, I’m doing it again, but here comes the unvarnished truth — not only was the furnace cranked up to full throttle, but there was also a raging inferno blazing in the fireplace. It was one of the few times that winter I saw my husband not wearing a jacket inside the house.
Rather than reach a compromise over our thermostat issue, we ran away from it and the winter weather. That’s the real reason we hit the road each October and stay away until late spring. It wasn’t about seeing America or the delights of traveling to new places. It was never about that!
But now, here it is. Cold. And here we are experiencing a true Northeast winter for the first time in a couple of decades. As you’d expect, history is repeating itself.
One of us is cold, the other is hot and we’re both cranky because we’re not getting enough sleep. The last person to the bed controls the thermostat, and every night we each try to out stay-up the other.
At this very moment, while I write these words, he is sitting in a chair not five feet from me, looking quite comfy. And smug. The thermostat is set at 70 because he turned it up when I was in the bathroom.
But then I turned it down on my way back from the bathroom. Then he turned it up when he went to look for the mayonnaise. And I turned it down when I got up to help him find the mayonnaise (it’s behind the milk, dammit! It’s always behind the milk!)
It’s only November. I don’t know which of us is going to break first, him, me or the thermostat.
Looks like the start of a long, long winter.
