The Birthday Furnace

Since Friday is my birthday, Eric is taking the day off work, and we were planning to have a fun birthday extravaganza. He was coming home from work early today, so I was very excited about starting the celebration, when at exactly 4:45 p.m., our furnace went out.

First, I started smelling a burning plastic smell, so I walked around the house sniffing and realized it was coming from the vents. Well, that’s not good.

About that time, Eric got home. He went down stairs and checked the furnace. It wasn’t working. He noticed the thermostat was slowly going down and asked, “Didn’t you notice it was getting colder?” Well, I’m always freaking cold!

I then called the furnace people and tried to explain the problem to the guy. Then I tried to give him directions to my house, to which he flat out said, “Those directions don’t make any sense.”

Okay, when I’m already in a pissy mood, don’t question my ability to give directions.

He finally showed up, and it turned out that the circuit board in our furnace was fried. Great. Happy freaking birthday to me! A new circuit board, plus labor, plus tax, plus whatever the hell they charge for, came to about $650. That is not cool.

After we paid, I poured myself a very large glass of wine. I figured that while the house was heating back up, I could at least try to warm myself up from the inside out. Eric began wondering if it would be cheaper to turn the thermostat down the rest of the winter and just keep me liquored up.

I’m willing to give it a shot.

In the meantime, if anyone wants to celebrate my birthday, we plan to sit around the furnace and have a drink.