Thou Shalt Not Covet Thy Neighbour's Furnace Man

First of all, it's currently 2.8°C / 37°F in our pantry. That's another 1.1°C less than two weeks ago. Three more degrees to go before we can officially make ice cubes.

Second of all, given the first point, is it so bad to covet one's neighbour's furnace man? I can't imagine so.

We finally broke down this morning - after waking up to a whopping 12.8°C / 55°F house - and called a furnace man (from this point on, known as Our Furnace Man). The Furnace People said that they were currently booking appointments for next Monday (today being Thursday). When it was mentioned that it was less than 13°C in the house, they said that they would have someone there before 1pm. Hurray for insistence!

A short while later, I noticed a repair-looking van parked outside our house. Oh joy! Oh glee! Our Furnace Man was early. I headed downstairs to open the door only to see Not Our Furnace Man enter the house across the street, tool belt and supplies neatly in tow. How could this be? How could they tease us so? Maybe we were next on the list? I could only hope.

Fortunately after staring out the window trying to will our neighbour's Furnace Man to come our way, a second Furnace Man Van drove up and indeed, this time, he was ours. Hurray! In the end, Our Furnace Man ended up staying close to an hour, tweaked a few knobs and left as soon as heat started flooding through the house. Something about low gas pressure. Two hundred bucks well spent, in my mind.