I hate forced heating.

I hate it with a passion like I don't hate much else. Hate is a strong word that gets over used all day and night, but I have thought out my emotion for this dilemma and hate seems appropriate. Put on a sweater. Wrap yourself in a down comforter. It's 2009, you can afford one, trust me, they're not just for Martha Stewart these days. As for the heater, it was so hot in here about 5 minutes ago, I think that my fight or flight instict kicked in to wake me up before I perished in the night.

When I bought my parents' house a few years ago, one of the first things that I did was put in a new HVAC. I bought it more for the AC than the HV. Being an old house, there was no heating or air in about half of it. The ducting into the bedrooms and the back of the house is right under the heater, so the air, cold or hot, blows like a fog horn on a foggy coastal night; like the Santa Anas blow every fall after the state declared the end of the fire season; it blows like Satchmo in a Big Easy parade. A surefire way to get me to act like a dragon with a hemhorroid is to turn up the heat and cook me alive. My nose dries out, my skin gets flushed, my scalp sweats, my throat gets dry, dehydration begins to set in, migraines form...you get the picture. I am not a hypochondriac, but getting overheated literally makes me feel sick and turns me into a crazy person. It has the hulk effect on me. I want to smash holes in walls and run down the street picking up taxis to hurl them at oncoming traffic kind of grumpy.

It's enough to get me out of bed at 6:30 to write about how much I hate forced heat. I'll take a hot summer night or a heat wave in stride. I'll strip off another layer, drink another cold beer, run through the sprinklers like I'm 8 years old again, I'd even drink out of a hose in a wife beater and daisy dukes before I let you sweat me out of my house in winter. Even worse...if we happen to work together and you decide to turn the air up in the shared room to a constant 74 degrees, I will walk out. I will take my headset off and go buy supplies to make a "Hell no, forced heat blows!" picket sign and I will temporarily quit. I will file a greivance. I will pull the fire alarm.

I got a friend of mine a magnet for her locker at work that reads, "I'm not having hot flashes. My inner child is just playing with matches." Well, I might only be 27, but if you turn the heat up on me one more time, my inner child might burn this mother down! Put on another sweater. Make yourself a cocoa. Wrap a scarf around your neck. Wear your Christmas socks in layers on your cold feet if you have to. Only then will we discuss turning the heater back up.

Just remember...dragon with a hemorrhoid. You're heating problem is about to be solved, cause I will spit fire at you til your toe hairs singe off.

I think that's my rant for the night...I'm gonna go try and find some nose balm for my desert plains of a nasal cavity and see about getting back to bed.

Remember...dragon. Hemorrhoid.