The Thermostat Wars Have Begun!!!

Therm Warfare

While everyone is pulling out their Christmas, Hanukah and Kwanzaa decorations, there is a silent war, a true ‘cold war’, going on in nearly every household in America. Even more so now, since fuel prices have soared thanks to the Halliburton frontmen in the Whitehouse, the Thermostat Wars have begun...

It’s a biological fact that when men get cold, blood flow increases to their extremities; arms, legs, hands and feet get an extra circulation boost to stay warm and continue hunting. When women get cold, blood flow decreases to their extremities and increases in their abdomen, to keep any fetus that might be lurking in there, at an even temperature. This evolutionary adaptation, really great during the Stone Age and all the metal ages, lost it's advantage around 1100 AD, when we began to see chimneys being built in northern Europe, which allowed people to go inside and get warm.

My research found a diary from that time recording the seminal moment when the concept of the chimney was born...

“September 1100AD.
Just taking a moment for myself this morning after stitching deerskins, before I make soap and start a venison roast for dinner. Jakob Hoffensnuffer proposed again. Such a nice man, but I told him, “Castle, schmastle. Figure out an indoor heating system or I might as well stay in this cave with my mother.”

“October 1100AD.
Moving today! Jakob invented a chimney! It's a funnel you put over a fireplace to draw off the smoke and keep the heat in the castle. Everyone’s coming to see it. Mother and I will be hanging tapestries all week and getting ready for the big cook-in next Thursday. Mother says it’s the best thing she’s seen since the wheel. What’s next? Sliced bread?”

99% of all the men I’ve ever met live comfortably between 65 and 70 degrees. It’s us gals that are the problem I’m afraid. Our internal thermostats go up and down with different stages of life and drive those around us nuts.

When we’re first married and prior to the kids coming, we fight with our spouses about keeping the heat up. The men plead, “Just wear a sweater!” But who wants to wear a sweater when we’re trying to look sexy 24/7? We know damn well this firm body is time limited so we better enjoy it now before child bearing forever flabs out our flat stomachs, nursing deflates our boobs and gravity wrecks the rest!

It’s at this age we learn to pop the heat as soon as he leaves the house. We develop an ability to hear his car coming down the street over anything. We can hear it over TV, stereo, phone calls, even in the shower. And as soon as we hear his car, we race through the house clearing jumps over furniture like an Olympic hurdler to reach that thermostat and turn it to down 65.

Then, we race to a neutral spot in the house, far enough away from the thermostat to throw off any suspicion he might have that we had the heat up the whole time he was gone, and just turned it down 2 seconds before he walked in the door. And when he says, “Geez, it’s hot in here!” We say, “Not really. I think the heat is on 65, you’re just cold from outside.” We give him a welcome home kiss and he realizes that we would never try to deceive him... Mission accomplished.

Then we get pregnant, also because of the thermostat.

Anytime a woman alone in a house with a man complains that she’s cold, he offers his favorite solution......sex (which seems to be a cure-all in his mind for anything a woman needs)... And sometimes we’re so cold, we say, ‘fine’. But now we’re warm and pregnant! Some solution!

But now, for the first time, we are finally warm, really warm....now HE’S begging to turn up the thermostat. I recall going to the movies with my hubby one November when I was seven months pregnant. It was 38 degrees outside. I was in a tee shirt, capri pants and sandals. He was freezing and I was comfortable for the first time in seven months.

During the child raising years, the thermostat wars rage. The men are too hot, the women are chilly, the kids are freezing. The heating bill arrives and the fights are huge. The thermostat is moved to 62 degrees and a machete is hung by the thermostat as a reminder that anyone who touches it will have their hands chopped off. That lasts until Dad leaves for work, then Mom pops the heat, and all the kids learn how to turn the knob down when they hear his truck....

Then... and here is where I genuinely pity the men.... menopause and all the years that lead up to it arrive. Personally, I can now sleep on a block of ice next to an air conditioner. If the temperature nears 65, I get anxious. At 70, I’m cranky and aggitated. If it hits 80 degrees, I’m stripping to my sunglasses. At 90 degrees, I go rabid and the fire department hoses me down and chains me to a tree so I don’t kill anyone. My children throw ice cubes at me which hiss as they melt on contact...

I have to admit, men are the noble long suffering victims of therm warfare. God bless them, everyone...