Bundle up, Eddie, I’m winning the thermostat war this year

Forget the pumpkin spice lattes, the cosy sweaters and the colourful scarves that are all so gleefully celebrated at this time of year.

With the sun slinging lower in the sky, shadows getting longer and the temperature dropping, I am getting ready to rumble. The fight over the thermostat is timeless. The struggle is real and, while we are barely dipping our toes into October, it’s on.

Our normal body temperature is supposed to be 98.6°F or 37°C and, it turns out, getting there and staying there is something we are all rather testy about. There have been days this young fall when I have been lounging about in shorts and a Tshirt while certain others in my household are hiding under blankets, slinking out from cover just long enough to tap the thermostat button and turn the temperature up, hoping I won’t notice.

Sometimes I don’t notice ... until it’s too late. The colder members of my household are my wife and Eddie the wiener dog. My daughter and I tend to run a little warmer. I try to be understanding, though. I know it’s not pleasant to be cold and I understand that room temperature should be around 70°F.

However, there are times when I will get distracted by something like changing a light bulb or poaching an egg and, before I even realize it, my temp has soared and I am a sweaty, frizzled-haired mess. I’ll go check the thermostat and, not so mysteriously, while I was busy, it had been cranked way, way, way higher than 70. It will be at, like, 72! Noooooo!

As if the house is filling with poison gas I’ll throw open the door gasping for air. Too ... hot ... must ... cool ... down.

And somewhere, a wife and wiener dog are curled under blankets, warm and giggling.

I’ve read this strange hypothesis about boiling a frog. It goes something like, if you put a frog in a pot of water and raise the temperature slowly and gradually enough you can boil that frog and it won’t even know what’s happening until it’s too late.

This is a horrifying story and I don’t even know why I’m bringing it up. I guess in this story, I am that frog except instead of boiling I’m being baked.

So while I will make the case that my wife is trying to turn me into a slab of beef jerky and she would say I’m trying to flash-freeze her, tensions are running a little high.

Fighting over the thermostat, while stressful, is actually a luxury. I just read a story about an Ottawa area couple who have seen hydro rates triple in recent years and they now face harsh decisions about whether to turn the heat on at all. With a hydro bill soaring from $125 per month in 2012 to $700 now, the retiree keeps the temp down around 15°C and doesn’t even heat the basement in winter.

I may be overheated but I can take some comfort in knowing that in the great thermostat debate, I am right. We should keep it as low as we can and we should just bundle up more. I see no problem with the colder people in the house wearing GoreTex pyjamas or sleeping in a hooded parka. These simple changes will save us money, save energy, and, not to be overly dramatic, probably save the planet.

For those reasons, I will keep up the fight. I will be vigilant of the thermostat ninjas who try to sneak the temperature up when I am not paying attention. I’ll set the timers to make sure we’re not pumping heat when no one is home. Bundle up, Eddie. This is only, just barely, fall. Winter is coming.