A warm gift

Call me a hopeless romantic. Try as I wanted, there was no way I was going to be able to hold off giving my wife her Christmas present early.

And she felt the same way. Our gifts simply could not wait until Dec. 25.

Plus, the downstairs was freezing, and we needed the heater working again.

Yes, my wife and I have given the mutual gift of a downstairs heating unit. It's "The Gift of the Magi" for boring married people.

We discovered it was broken back in October when a cool spell hit, and I went to turn on the downstairs unit.

We have mainly hardwood floors downstairs, and here's a little know trait of hardwoods - when temperatures dip below 75, hardwood turns to ice. It can be a springlike 72 outside, and my den is suitable to hang meat.

When I turned on the unit, it did nothing. But that was not unusual, as it would often take anywhere from 10 seconds to an hour to cut on. Several people told me that was not normal. I told them that if I can ignore it, so can they.

But this time there would be no cutting on. The closest it came was a clicking at the thermostat.

I called the heating repair folks, and they came out for what I hoped would be our usual drill. (That's where they come and look at the machine, tell me that I have to turn it to "heat" and then charge me a $60 dummy tax.)

Not this time. I was informed I had a cracked heat exchanger, which, in addition to making my unit inoperable, can apparently also pump scads of carbon monoxide into my home.

Wow, it's cold inside AND it's as if an idling Ford Pinto is parked in my den - double win!

I asked him how much it would be to fix the heater. He looked at me with one those, "Oh, you poor thing" looks.

I knew it was not good.

Granted, I was not surprised that the unit was going to have to be replaced. Best I can tell, the unit was actually constructed in the 1930s, and our house was built around it some 50 years later.

Trying to find a bright side, I noted that it was right around the time of my wife's birthday, so I could get her that for a present. Not so fast. My wife decided she had other plans for her birthday, namely getting sick and having to go into the hospital for a three-day stay. Nothing but high-ticket items for my gal.

So the heater went to the back burner (ha!). I used a couple of space heaters to keep the kitchen warm, and generally avoided the rest of the house. When the kids would complain that the den was cold, I would tell them that they are just like the pioneers, braving a sub-70 den to watch Tivo'd SpongeBob. It's that kind of fortitude that built this country. After about six weeks of not having a heater, I had experienced all of the fortitude I cared to. The heating folks came out with a new unit.

It's a Carrier, so named, I believe, because it is the size of an aircraft carrier. They also installed a fancy new digital thermostat that, I am fairly certain, was used as a prop on the latest "Star Trek" movie.

They showed my wife how to use it, and she showed me. We had this conversation:

HER: You can even set it for both heat and cool to come on.

ME: Why would you do that?

HER: In case the temperature fluctuates.

ME: Do you really think that's going to be a problem?

Fortunately, it also has a manual mode, in which I can push one of four delightful options: heat, cool, an up arrow and a down arrow.

Yes, I know I can set it to come on automatically and do all kinds of fancy tricks. I can also get up in the morning and cut it on. I feel confident it will heat up in short order. I'm not trying to warm up the Biltmore House.

So now that my wife and I have settled in with our cozy warm downstairs Christmas gift, we can enjoy the holidays in comfort. And then I will look forward to Valentine's Day. I'm thinking of getting her the matching upstairs unit.