Your House is Too Cold!

Adam requested I share this story:

While my mom was living in California she came out for a visit one Christmas. It's been an ongoing problem that she's freezing cold when she's at my house, anytime of the year. I think the problem got worse when she moved to California...maybe her blood thinned out like it does for your warm weather folks. She had lost some of the frontier hardiness it takes to tolerate a winter day at my house.

It was the night before Christmas Eve, maybe around 10:00, when I started to smell something horrific coming from the kitchen. I had been upstairs in bed, trying to go to sleep. As I started down the stairs I could see smoke and the smell was terrible and hard to define. I ran down the stairs to find Judi-Kari in the kitchen. "It's alright! Go back to bed!" she hollered. "What happened???" I asked. "Nothing! Just go back to bed!" "Are those your pajamas?" I asked as I spied a smoldering clump of red in the microwave. "Well, yeah." she answered. "What are they doing in the microwave???" I asked. She said, "I was cold." By now the terrible burning-plastic- meets- chemical- fire stench had permeated every inch of my small house. "What's on fire???" Adam asked as he came running up the stairs? Soon everyone in the house was running in to see what the emergency was. The smell was absolutely nauseating. I ran around and opened every window and door and turned on all the ceiling fans. In a matter of minutes the entire house was freezing, but that smell was stubborn.

I went back to the microwave to determine the extent of the damage. I picked up the offending PJ's with the barbecue tongs. They were still fiery hot. As they unfolded I saw that there were several charred holes. Had there been actual flames in the microwave? "Mom, why on Earth would you put your pajamas in the microwave?" I asked. "Well, I thought they weren't too different from those bean bag things you always use." she answered. "Yes, but those are like, 100% cotton and all natural fibers. You can't put in your polyester blend pj's with the rubbery elastic waistband!" I told her. "You can always toss your clothes in the dryer or use a hair dryer to heat them up." I added.

I was so irritated! I was now super tired and freezing cold. My house smelled so awful I didn't think I could sleep. After an hour or so I had to close the house up and go to bed. As I laid there trying to go to sleep, I started laughing hysterically. I couldn't stop. Jon asked what I was laughing about. "My mom almost burned our house down on Christmas Eve-Eve because she cooked her pajamas in the microwave! You don't think that's funny?" I asked. He started laughing and we laid in bed and giggled about it for 15 minutes. You can't buy this kind of entertainment.

The next day, after we documented the incident with photos (she was a good sport!) I bought electric blankets for all the beds in my freezing cold house. From that point on she was as warm as she liked when she came to stay. My kids still talk about the Christmas their Nanna almost burned their house down.