It’s been very cold here for a while, though today is more moderate. Earlier in the week our heater showed some distressing signs of trouble (hint: the house was not getting warm when we turned up the thermostat) so we called the repairman. Thankfully it was nothing serious and the heater pulled itself together after a little TLC and went back to work for us. I have renewed gratitude for a warm house and for people who know how to keep it that way.
On a Very Cold Winter Day
Don’t worry about the cave man
said the repairman
A tractor and some cannibals
Will take care of him
The flexible forks help a lot.
At least
that’s what is sounded like to me
what he said
with me standing there shivering in the basement
watching him poke at the insides of
the heater not currently heating
its control panel blinking out a frantic SOS
in heater language
all of it is a mystery to me except for the part where
my nose is cold. That is what I know.
(Time passes.
My nose is colder.)
The repairman slams the heater door shut
We watch while
it coughs and chokes and
decides to breathe out hot air again.
See, I told you
The forks ran the cave man off the premises
the tractor was enough horsepower
and no cannibals needed!
I think that is what the repairman said.
I pay him. With a cheery wave
he departs to warm up another cold house.
I reflect:
those flexible forks really do work remarkably well.
Heat flows from the floor vents.
My nose is not cold.
2/3/22
Claudia McGill Writes Poetry, Did You Know That? 
That sounds like the conversation I had with the guy installing the new building intercoms. Hopefully I’ll understand how to use it when someone buzzes me, because I didn’t get a word of his instructions. (K)
I remember in one apartment I lived in I never learned to use the buzzer for exactly this reason, and since I lived on the first floor I could get around it by telling visitors to come around to the patio door. I can’t believe I let it go for yeras like that.
Inertia is a strong force.
Hehe! Had a phone conversation and I think he was speaking the same dialect as your furnace repairman!!
And the thing is that my husband and I heard two different things and neither of us exactly understood but the heater is going and we know what we’re supposed to be doing now so…all’s well that ends well, I guess!
Awesome poem and so glad your heating thing was resolved! We lost heat for a while last winter and that was unpleasant!
Thank you. Yes. I make sure to speak nicely to the heater when I go into the basement and I wonder if that helped this time, since it was so cooperative in starting back up again???
In this weather we might have to build shrines to our heaters and provide offerings 😉
Our neighbors also had heat issues. You maybe be right. Our neighborhood maybe needs to let the heaters know they are appreciated with a little more fanfare, maybe???