SLOGGING THROUGH WINTER... Good & bad (Part 169h)

SLOGGING THROUGH WINTER… Good & bad (Part 169h)

The good feeling was soon to disappear. Walking up to the house I noticed that the only light was coming from the kitchen. A pet peeve of mine was that the kids would leave lights on when leaving a room knowing they weren’t going to return. That was especially so when they were called for supper, leaving the den and living room lights on. An optimistic thought was that Elle was finally getting through to them. Once in the kitchen I saw all of them, the baby included, all gathered down by the oven and stove. What was even more of an eye opener was that they all were wearing their coats. Before I could ask why Elle was all over me wanting to know why I hadn’t called her back. I didn’t know what she meant and with a puzzled look asked what she was talking about. She proceeded to tell me she’d called twice and left a message both times. It took me a few seconds to think about that and then asked when she’d called. She couldn’t remember the exact times but it came to me that Joanie had left work early so it could’ve been anyone who answered. But, with a little thought I remembered that for part of the afternoon Bret and I had been  outside shoveling the sidewalk. I briefly explained and then asked why she’d called. Plain and simple… they had no heat.

That was a surprise as fuel oil had been delivered just a day or two earlier. I looked at my watch and it wasn’t quite 6pm, still a chance to get to the company that sold the oil and to get a service call in. They were located in the same town as the bank and as they were good customers I decided to do business with them. That… and the fact that with a delivery of 500 gallons they would take 3 cents a gallon off the price. $20 was a lot of money back then. But there was no answer. I knew the names of both the owners and tried to get a phone number for them but without success. I knew nothing about oil burners but went to the basement anyway. I knew how to start the burner when it was time to turn on the heat after the Summer was over so tried that but got nothing for my effort. Thinking about the situation for a few seconds,it only took a short time to come up with plan ”B”.

It was to call the company that provided oil for the church. The owner and his family were members of the congregation and they had been very patient when there was no money to pay for the oil. The owner, Fred, would periodically pressure me to do my personal business with him. So, the call was to him. Of course, the first question was to ask if I had fuel oil. When I told him that it had only been a day since it was delivered he ‘snorted’ which sort of surprised me. “It’s the filter!” he bellowed out. I didn’t really grasp what he meant and questioned him on it. He explained that when the tank was filled it had probably stirred up the sludge in the bottom of the tank and that was clogging the filter. I asked if he could come out and he gave me a rather terse “No” as an answer. He did me to call his son, Arnie, who’d been working for him for a while doing service work. Both Elle and I knew him and some of his ‘escapades’. (I could write a whole post about him.) It was not a comforting thought to think he’d be the one to fix whatever was wrong. Somewhat reluctantly I made the call only to hear a female voice answer. Elle had casually mentioned that Arnie had married one of the teachers she’d subbed for and the voice reminded me of it. But, Arnie was out snowmobiling. She seemed nice and wanted to know why I’d called. I explained and she, trying to be helpful, said the service truck was outside and if I could come over in about 20 minutes she’d try to find the thing I needed. I didn’t have much choice so, after grabbing a bite to eat headed for Arnie’s house.

It took but five minutes to get there. Even though I’d briefly met her I didn’t really remember what she looked like. When she opened the door I saw a cute young woman in a bathrobe looking like she’d just stepped out of the shower. She introduced herself as Margie and proceeded to praise Elle for the time she’d taken over her class. That was nice to hear but I had a wife, three kids and a baby who were at home and were cold and needed a filter. I wasn’t bold enough to ‘push’ her on it more than to offer to go out to the truck and to try and find the filters. She said she had a good idea where they were kept and told me it’d only take her a minute. She slipped on a ski jacket and disappeared out the door. I was left standing in the middle of the kitchen so, with nothing to do, took a look around. When I saw some denim pants lying over a chair I also noticed some articles of white clothing draped over the back of another one. I was only a few steps away so moved over. I saw the seat of the pants appeared to be damp. Moving closer I could see they were lined with flannel. Elle had those kind of pants for our older girls to wear when playing outside so I knew what they were for. Standing there I became convinced the larger white article was what Elle called “Long Johns” which she would wear under her pants when ice skating to keep her legs warm. Next to them was something much smaller and I turned my attention to it. It didn’t take long to realize they were panties. I wanted to pick them up to inspect them but had no idea how long Margie would be so just stood there staring at them. Finally, unable to resist the temptation, I reached down to feel them. They were cotton and were damp… which excited me. I only touched them for a second or two but as I let them drop back I noticed there seemed to be some pink in the waist and leg elastics. I knew I’d seen some like it but couldn’t remember where, which annoyed me. I was going to try and lift them up with the idea of checking the label to see who made them. Just as my hand started down I heard the turning of the door handle and immediately felt my face flush. Margie walked in with some small boxes and said she hoped one would be the one I needed. As I moved forward to take them from her I was hoping she wouldn’t notice the color of my cheeks. As I thanked her I told her I’d return the unused ones to the office and then pay Arnie. To make the visit a little more personal I asked when he’d gotten the snowmobile. That brought a big smile to her round face and she said it belonged to her father and that she was only letting Arnie “borrow” it. She said she’d been out riding all afternoon, taking advantage of the snow while it was around. She also said she’d stayed out a bit too long and “paid the price for it”. Not knowing what she meant I headed out the door and for home.

On the trip home I concentrated on just how I was going to make the change of filters. Since I’d never done it wasn’t sure just what I’d find when I got back to the basement. After assessing the situation I collected to tools I thought I’d need as well as one of Elle’s pots just to make sure no fuel oil spilled onto the concrete floor. Every time I went to the basement at Elle’s house I could smell fuel oil from a spill from  back when we were still in college and I didn’t want that. It was a relatively easy process. One of the filters was the exact one I needed. I managed to do the job without making a mess. The filter I removed looked like it was coated with tar which explained why no oil was making it to the "gun". My only problem was in getting it to start and to stay running. By the time I did the temperature in the house had dropped to below 60 degrees. We let the kids stay up later than usual hoping to get the house a little warmer. When they did go to bed they were wearing their coats. I stayed up until about 1am and the temperature had risen to around 65 degrees. I took their coats off before going to bed myself. I was wide awake and my thoughts drifted back to Margie and the damp clothes I seen, wondering how they'd gotten wet. Her statement about staying out too long got me to fantasize that maybe she'd wet herself. It was with that thought That I finally fell asleep.

To be continued...