Kryptonite

It should come as no surprise that heating a century home is not always an efficient or consistent process.

You have the heating apparatus itself – a boiler the size of small tent city – taking up valuable real estate in your basement. To add to the annoyance, the real estate is in the dead center of the largest part of the basement – the part most people would convert to additional living space. The part where currently all toys go to die.

This does not take into account the pipes that weave their tapestry overhead, preventing us from having a ceiling that doesn’t resemble the inside of submarine. It should also be noted that on the exact opposite side of the basement is washer/dryer/hot water tank. Why someone felt the need to separate these compatible items is beyond my comprehension.

Next you have the heating conduits – massive radiators encased by even more massive covers – parked in what always seems the most inconvenient spot for furniture placement. To be fair, I’m not sure there is an actual convenient spot for a radiator.

If you’ve never had radiators, you may not know that occasionally (read: most of the time) when the cold condensation in the radiators caused when the thermostat is turned down hits the hot water caused when the thermostat is turned up it creates a sound not unlike someone pounding on the metal coils with a hammer. (Author’s Note: I’m not actually sure that’s what causes the hammering, but is sounds scientific and shit.)

Then there is the programmable thermostat set to turn the down at bedtime and up in the morning. If you remember back to my previous paragraph, you now know what my alarm clock sounds like in the winter.

Counteracting the phenomenal illustration of thermal comfort is the high-tech ventilation system that came with this piece of historical architecture…old windows.

Despite all of these things, our bedroom is usually pretty comfortable. Upstairs holds the evening’s heat pretty well, so we just throw an extra blanket on in the winter and are good to go.

But a couple weeks ago…right when heading back to work…I made a fatal error. I decided it was cold enough to throw the flannel sheets on.

The flannel sheets put us over the edge. It’s never good to be in complete comfort in your own bed. The bed becomes the den of sloth. It is a Bermuda triangle of warmth, weight and fluffiness. Two will enter, none will leave. Even Scott has missed some morning run wake up calls in the past two weeks, which is practically unheard of.

The sheets are kryptonite. We are powerless against them. The thought of taking them off my bed gives me the shakes.