It’s been particularly cold in the house today, though outside it didn’t seem extreme at all—-cold, chilly, yes, but not like it’s felt trying to stay warm inside. My hands have been so cold when I’m trying to do anything requiring fingers or grip strength I can barely manipulate objects, certainly not open a jar or even peel open a zip lock bag. The overall impression is that my body is failing—age (the old kind). But I say it’s only the temperature. When this kind of test happens I have to check myself. I ask me, “Would this be happening if I were thirty?” The answer this time is yes, so my system of denial is safe for the time being.

The furnace in this house is inscrutable and most probably malfunctioning, but who could tell really? There’s no owner’s manual though there must have been one at some time.This house and all the others of the 485 houses were plopped down at perfectly regular intervals at the same time and designed by the same developer’s architectural mix-n-match-Blu-Printz-R-Us contractors, the entire tract and everything in it built en mass in 2006, finished and sold moved into and done by 2008. We are dealing with large numbers. 

Here’s how I think it works:

Just for example, all the appliances in all the kitchens are Thermadors. There are discounts on refrigerator/freezer, four burner one griddle gas stove top, double electric wall oven and dishwasher combinations if you order over 25 at a time. Price breaks and further discounts at 100, 200, 400, 600, 1000. But the real price breaks are when you order 10,000 or more identical sets. So these clever developers bought up decommissioned military bases all over the country and flattened hundreds of square miles of ex-government neglected land, mowed down anything growing, whether weeds, trees, or poor people and created hundreds of square miles worth of identical terrain. This way one template was good for all fifty developments. Such a deal on Thermador kitchen-combo bottom of their line sets when you order 24,255 of them. Then the central heating—24,255  furnaces. Go ahead. See what kind of amazing price breaks you can get if you order 24,255 of something. Money is the root of all evil. Hoard it and watch it grow!

I’ve examined the thermostat for the make and model number. The make is Carrier, but there’s no model number visible. I’d have to pry the thing off the wall or get Meyshe to brute strength the thing open (I can’t because my hands are too cold). There’s got to be a model number someplace on, in, under or behind it. Or maybe there’s an emergency Carrier furnace company trouble shooting crisis kit embedded in the wall behind the thermostat. Carrier? Never heard of them. Likely owned by Thermador (a recent acquisition/sex slave of the Jeff Bezos Amazon Alpha Corporate Gobbling Group). I looked up Carrier on the internet. There are dozens of models—photos of the thermostat command models are clearly displayed on their web page: dozens of them. Good, all good. There is, however, not one thermostat depicted that looks anything like the one on this wall. Too old? Obsolete? 

Or: it could be a model not shown online because this model is a special developers tract model—below bottom of the Carrier line basic residential model. The developers tract furnace model isn’t even made by Carrier. Carrier outsources it to a Chinese manufacturer. And they’re only a front for the North Korean factory. The developers tract model is made by prisoners in North Korean “Jail Cities”. These jail cities supply what are suspected to be millions of highly motivated workers—-as long as you work eighteen hours a day, don’t complain and don’t die on the job, we won’t kill you. As long as nothing you make explodes while still in North Korea, no medical experimentation on you. Great motivator—stick and carrot combined in one severely convincing pep talk.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         

This could be why this furnace and its wall mounted thermostat don’t work and/or can’t be figured out. The controls, such as they are, do not respond to commands and whatever the little buttons on the control panel do and no matter what crazy codes appear on the screen and no matter whether the buttons and what appear on the screen have anything to do with each other, the furnace itself is unresponsive. After futzing around with the controls forever, it became clear that to make it behave in a manner roughly similar to a climate control command center, I must go to the main house electricity panel on the wall in the laundry room. There are two toggle switches labeled “12”. They control the juice to the furnace. I flip them to the left and it turns on the heat. I leave it on until we’re less uncomfortably frozen. Then I go to the wall panel and flip the two toggle switches labeled “12” back to the right. The furnace turns off. The furnace, therefore is off unless I make the effort to turn it on. This is good for everyone. It saves money on the utility bill when it’s more of a pain to trudge up the stairs to flip the switch than it is to put on a sweater and kvetch. Here we see that kvetching is good for the environment.

Also—and this is not trivial—I feel that I’ve performed a mitzvah, at least one mitzvah. I do not refer here to the unfreezing of the Shapiro hands and toes, nor the careful earth conscious conservation of electric power, nor the lowered energy bill. Somewhere in far off North Korea, a human being I will never meet and never specifically identify, a prisoner incarcerated for leaving out a word in the “Dear Leader” anthem, will not be killed today, and will not be subjected to medical experimentation. We are all glad to be alive. This prisoner and I are partners in the Citizens of the World pact. The  prisoner gives me the opportunity to perform this soul affirming mitzvah, and I save the prisoner from death and torture (not in that order of course. I mean, what would be the point?). 

A hearty, Thank You! and a hearty Mazel Tov!!