Getting Warmer

When it comes to handyman work, and for me it usually doesn't, I'm not so handy. However, this evening I completed the handiest chore any non-mechanical man could hope for: I replaced the pilot and thermocouple apparatus on my home's floor furnace. BOOM-Shakka-Lakka!

Enough said. This post could and should be over.

But I'm not one to starve an audience (cricket, cricket) of any succulent details involved in what folklore will soon hail as Furnace Project '07.

It all began at 8:00 this morning when my Mrs. announced her feet were "cold" because the furnace was "not on." Not one for hysterics, I nuzzled deeper into blankets snoozed 'till 8:30. Her second announcement concerning the polar condition of our home was a bit more foreboding and not unlike a threat.

"Get your skinny, white #$@* (ass) downstairs and fix our furnace! It's been off all night and I'm freezing!," she noted calmly.

After the crisp jaunt downstairs and much shivering while waiting in vain for the pilot to ignite, I scampered back to bed where it was warm - the bed that is, not the welcome of my wife.

"Is it fixed?" she asked sarcastically because she knows I can't fix a sandwich.

"No, the pilot light won't work."

"Can you make it work?" she said, still jabbing.

"No, I don't know the first thing about furnaces," I said matter-of-factly like it would be silly for me to even try since I don't have a degree in them or anything.

"What a wimp I am!" I thought. "Would dad throw in the towel if something so simple broke? Would he even THINK about calling a repair company to come fix the problem? No! He'd handyman it and keep his family warm. He'll know what to do!"

"Hello, dad?" I asked a minute later into the frost-covered cell phone. "How do you fix a furnace?"

"Well, those are tough and kind of dangerous," he said trying to mask his fear I was about to blow Sedgwick county to bits by even thinking of tampering with a real gas furnace. "Are you sure you don't just want me to drive over and help you?"

"No, Dad, I'm perfectly capable of replacing it if you'll just tell me what to do," (famous last sentence).

Then he started using big words I'd never heard before like 'copper wiring', 'wrenches', 'valves' and 'Ace Hardware'. I was lost in a deluge of real man terms.

After returning from the hardware store and assembling the pilot light and thermocouple units with my shiny, never-before-touched tools from my never-before-touched toolbox given to me on my wedding day three years previous, I had set sail on a sea of masculinity.

That all changed when flames began shooting inadvertently out the sides of my copper wiring and I tried to scurry away like a chipmunk in front of a dump truck. But I couldn't move. With my nose literally two inches from the erupting burners, I froze and pictured my face charred like a backyard grill briquette and the phrase "He Died Trying" splashed across my tombstone.

At the end of the day, Furnace Project '07 was completed and my house is now toasty. To all you wannabe handymen out there, take this advice: keep those tools wrapped in that plastic and ready for action. You never know when you might need 'em.

Next up for me? Shower Head Project '08.

BOOM-Shakka-Lakka!