Back when I lived in England, I was engaged for a year, so I was trying to save money. I lived with a little old lady who was very stingy with her heating. Basically there was none. I woke up morning after morning with ice inside my windows. I’m not joking. I was so cold my bones hurt. I could see my breath every morning as I breathed. My blanket was not very warm either, so how did I survive?
It wasn’t the ancient space heater that hardly put off any heat at all if I put in $2 every hour in coins. Yes, I had to put coins in to get electricity. So I gave up on that. My fiance gave me a heating pad for Christmas, and he made sure it didn’t require electricity. (The plugs are different in England anyway, and he was living in the United States.) All I had to do was click a metal disk to set off the heating pad, and the next day I could boil it and use it again.
I also had a hot water bottle. I used this first. I poured scalding hot water into the hot water bottle. Then I would drag it all around my icy sheets. I would go to sleep with it, and whenever I woke up in pain from the cold in the middle of the night, I would crack the disk on the other one, and aaaahhhh….. I could fall back to sleep and survive.
Now that I live in the United States, I actually have heat in my house. But my husband likes the thermostat a lot lower than I do at night. He complains that my hands are icy, but whose fault is that? I mean, I know I just brushed my teeth with cold water, so it’s technically my fault that my hands are freezing, but my hands would warm up much faster if I wasn’t in Antarctica. Then he begrudges me when I want to turn on my heating pad. He calls it my other lover.
I thought of changing this blog entry into a poem entitled “Ode to a Heating Pad,” only to get laughs from my husband. But I’m too tired for that right now. Maybe I’ll go take a nap with my heating pad…
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Okay, this poem took me about 10 minutes to write, and it was super fun.
Ode to a Heating Pad
When the cold winter winds blow,
When darkness fills the sky,
I’m not shivering under my covers;
And here’s the reason why:
My heating pad is cozy;
My heating pad is hot;
My heating pad fabulous;
I’m so glad it was bought!
I have no need for riches;
I have no need for men;
As long as I have my heating pad,
I’ll never be cold again!
