Uncivil war waged over thermostats

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 12/01/2019 (2750 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

What with winter sinking its teeth into our pasty flesh, a heated argument has erupted at my house.

And I mean that quite literally.

Let’s call it Thermostat Wars, the annual wintertime battle that breaks out in our residence — and probably yours — because my wife, She Who Must Not Be Named, and I cannot agree on the ideal home temperature.

The problem is that I like the temperature set somewhere around “normal,” whereas my beloved spouse prefers a setting that could charitably be described as “Antarctic Research Station During a Power Outage in the Middle of a (Bad Word) Blizzard.”

“You can always put on another sweater, or cuddle up with the dogs if you’re cold,” is what my wife will say.

I wish I was kidding about this, but, sadly, I am not. For instance, if a group of rogue penguins escaped from a zoo and managed to find their way to our house, you would hear them (assuming you spoke penguin) making icy comments such as: “Wow! You guys really like it chilly, don’t you?” Or: “I wish you had an electric fence, so I could warm up by flinging my tiny penguin body into it.”

The way it typically works at our house is that, when my wife is away at work and I am at home writing thoughtful columns such as this, I will crank the temperature up to the point where I am no longer forced to wear thermal socks to prevent my feet from turning into blocks of ice.

When my wife returns home, however, the first thing she does — I am not making this up, by the way — is storm over to the thermostat and turn the setting down to the point where I no longer have to go outside to see my breath, if you catch my freezing drift.

This past week, my wife has been stuck at home because the Killer Cold from Hell has robbed her of her voice, which means we are both in the house at the same time during the daylight hours, which has forced each of us to stage ninja-style sneak attacks on the thermostat in a desperate effort to adjust the temperature to something we find bearable.

“Where do you think you are going?” I will demand of my wife when I spot her shuffling down the hallway in her bathrobe. “Do NOT touch the thermostat! I find it hard to write columns when I have to wear a huge, puffy parka.”

“Cough, squeak, cough,” my sickly spouse will reply, barely above a whisper.

Naturally, I will assume she has respected my wishes — at least until I notice that my formerly scalding cup of coffee is now covered with a sheet of ice and my fingers have turned blue and become frozen to the keyboard of our home computer.

Whenever one of us appears distracted, the other will tip-toe quietly down the hall to change the temperature in the house. We are more divided on the issue of home heating than Donald Trump and the Democrats are on funding for a (bad word) wall on the border with Mexico, if you can imagine.

I know what you are thinking. You are thinking: “Gee, Doug, the correct household temperature seems like a trivial issue to be getting all hot and bothered about.”

Well, thanks very much for the marital advice, but if you are unable to see how battling over control of the thermostat can pose a threat to even the happiest marriage, then I will assume that you have never had a spouse.

My insistence on keeping the house at a “reasonable temperature for the maintenance of human life” seems to anger my spouse even more than when I used to noisily root around in the bottom of a foil potato-chip bag while she was engrossed in one of those never-ending mother-daughter conversations during an episode of The Gilmore Girls.

The good news, as I have recently discovered, is She Who Must Not Be Named and I are not alone in duking it out over the most comfortable home temperature.

According to reports in Britain’s Daily Mail and Independent newspapers, a recent study sponsored by Corgi Homeplan — a company that installs and maintains boilers and thermostats — found that a full one-third of married couples argue about how warm (or cold) to keep their homes.

According to this study, men prefer the cold and keep the thermostat way too low, thereby forcing four in 10 women to stealthily crank the heat up behind their partner’s back.

It seems the difficulties emerge because the difference in the speed of men’s and women’s metabolisms means that men like to be in a colder environment than women, which explains why one of my favourite phrases is: “To hell with science!”

The thing is… OK, how can I phrase this in a sensitive manner that will not outrage female readers… my wife has reached a stage in life wherein she experiences what are called “hot flashes,” during which she could boil water simply by touching a kettle with her bare hands.

There used to be a TV commercial — I can’t remember what it was for — wherein a woman of a certain age slipped on her galoshes and marched outside to stand in the snow in a desperate effort to cool down. “THAT’S ME!” my wife would always squeal when she saw that ad.

Regardless of what science says, it seems obvious to me that most people marry their body-temperature opposite, meaning they will never agree on the temperature required to be comfy.

I have a lot more important thoughts on this vital question, but I don’t have time to share them with you right now, because I promised to make a pot of tea for the penguins in our den.

doug.speirs@freepress.mb.ca