Furnace excitement, day two!

A little background about our old furnace -- it was dead as a doornail. This must be implicitly understood, or else nothing wondrous or magical can come from the tale I'm about to relate.

To be fair, it was technically as dead (or as live) as a doornail even when it was in perfect working order. The last time it was in perfect working order, however, was around 1989. More recently it has developed an unnerving tendency to function properly for a while, kick off, try to kick on, have the gas back up and collect for a while, and then ignite in a thunderous, house-shaking explosion that could be felt by the next-door neighbors. I kid you not -- although that doesn't say much, perhaps, for our safety precautions, since this has happened at least a dozen times over the past year with our response being mainly, "Whoa, hope THAT doesn't happen again!"

It did happen again, however, and it eventually reached the point where even we could not ignore the problem anymore, because it was now threatening to kill us.

That brings us to this morning, when servicemen arrived to take out the old furnace and put in the new. It's a two-day job, but they made a good dent in it, easily reaching the two-thirds mark before quittin' time (three p.m.). I was not involved in any capacity other than to keep Augie Doggy from barking the entire time, which is her usual contribution to any skilled labor.

So, God and servicemen willing, we'll have functioning central heat well before I next write you, which wont mean a darned thing to you but will be a heck of a nice change for me. Go get your Christmas shopping taken care of, decorate your trees, and we'll meet back here on monday morning.

Synchronize watches!