My beloved and I get along very
well—most of the time. But there are some times when, if others were to hear us
talking to each other, they’d swear we were people from two different worlds. Of
course in some ways we are, as men and women are quite different in several
ways, one from the other.
We married when I was one week
shy of my 18th birthday, and he was a much older man of 19½.
During our forty-three years together, we’ve raised three children,
welcomed seven grandchildren, and buried one of each. There have been times so
lean, we used to hunt beer bottles at the side of the road to cash in so we
could buy milk and bread for the table. Lately, though we’re not rich, we don’t
struggle, financially, at all. We’ve learned how to budget—money, time and
differing opinions—and we’ve learned how to not sweat the small
stuff.
We haven’t, like some married
folks do, drifted apart. That’s not just luck, that’s us working at being
married. We talk, we share, we fight and make up, and we understand the concept
of compromise. And we make allowances for each other’s...foibles.
A couple of weeks ago, our
furnace—that had just turned twelve years old—broke down, again. It broke down
in the coldest part of the winter in 2013, and cost us over a thousand dollars
to fix at that time. It broke down in the deep cold again last year, but that
repair was covered under the protection plan. At least the timing of this
current malfunction was better—the temperatures were chilly but not freezing
when it stopped working at eight o’clock at night. Because it wasn’t yet the
rush season for furnace breakdowns, the repairman was out two hours after my
call the next morning.
When my husband came home from
work, I reported that the furnace was indeed fixed—but that I had told the
repair man yes, he could have a salesman call. David said, “It’s only twelve
years old. Furnaces are supposed to last twenty-five years!” I commiserated with
his feeling of frustration. We purchased that furnace in 2003 and paid a few
thousand dollars for it. It likely would have lasted twenty-five years – if we’d
bought it in 1975.
While I had been hoping to wait
until this coming summer to buy a new furnace, I was no longer willing to take
the chance of another breakdown. For me, it was a case of three strikes, you’re
out. Yes, we pay a monthly 30 dollar protection plan fee to the gas company
(from whom we bought the furnace), so just about anything that goes wrong with
it is covered. But the repair man told me the heat exchanger that had been the
cause of the break down and waiting for the part in 2013 might go again—as
several others for this same model had done, in his experience. That was one of
the few parts not covered by warrant or protection plan, and an expense even my
husband was not willing to pay again.
“It won’t hurt to sit down and
talk to the man,” David agreed. “But we are not renting a furnace. I’ve heard
horror stories from some of the guys at work about renting furnaces. Besides, if
you calculate out the cost of renting over twenty-five years, you will end up
paying for that furnace two or three times more than if you’d bought it in the
first place.”
Some concepts are tough to let
go. Between then and the day the man came to talk to us about replacing our
furnace, my beloved did a little more research and found out that truly, the
twenty-five year furnace had gone the way of spats and the two-pants suit. Once
he’s presented with facts he’s not afraid to change his mind. I have to respect
that about him.
I’m happy to report that we now
have a high efficiency furnace that so far has proven so much more efficient, I
figure we’ll make back a great deal of the monthly rental fee on gas and
electricity savings. We already no longer have to pay that 30 dollar protection
plan fee. And the best part is that come summer, we will have something that we
have never, ever had before. We’ll have central air—which came with the furnace
at no extra cost.
Love,
Morgan
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