The Annual Furnace Battle

I am naturally a cold person, temperature-wise.  If I could wear knee socks and cardigans every day of my life, I would be very happy (and much warmer, termperature-wise).  Every year around this time, the battle of the furnace begins in our house.  When the temperature dips below 45 degrees, I firmly believe the furnace should kick on, even just for a few minutes, to ensure that our house remains at a comfortable minimum of 68 degrees.  There are few scents more comforting to me than that of the furnace kicking on for the first time in months, the dry, musty warmth slowly creeping through the house.

My husband begs to differ.

See? Here he is, threatening me with a dangerous pair of tongs, as I attempt to creep over to the thermostat.  (Not really.  He was getting ready to grill 10 pounds of chicken wings here, but this is the most threatening photo I have of my mellow and non-confrontational husband.)

My husband believes that no thermostat in the Northeast should be ignited until November 1st.  This coming from a man who grew up in the slightly-more-temperate climate of Long Island, where winter didn't begin until December, if at all, and only lasted until February at best.  

Last year, it took both of my children complaining that they couldn't feel their toes or noses to get him to turn on the furnace.  This year, his carefully planned excuse for not turning it on is, "We need to get the furnace serviced to make sure it is safe to turn it on...that we won't get carbon monoxide poisoning from a crack in the manifold." 

A crack in the manifold.  I would like to thank my aunt and uncle in Wisconsin for mentioning that happened to their furnace a few years ago, because now my warm-blooded husband is going to use that as his prime fear-mongering tool to keep our furnace off as long as possible. 

The forecast for the next week or so has nighttime temperatures hovering between 45 and 50 degrees.  For the sake of our marriage and our children, it better not go any lower than that.