Do You Have Heat?

Connecticut was experiencing single digit night time temperatures and expecting 13 degrees the next morning. As I am dosing off to sleep, my phone rings. "Do you have heeeaaaat?" my mother asks in her almost I told you so, sort of caring, but also warning voice. Of course I have heat I tell her, my mind suddenly filled with thousands of doubts. Did we pay the oil bill? When did they deliver last? Did I make sure that the thermostat was set to be extra hot in the morning? I thought they called the other day, was it because something was wrong with my account? Did I call them back? Who remembers....

I then asked her if she had heat and she assured me that she did. The following morning my five year old daughter was shivering at breakfast. Convincing myself she was just a drama queen I told her to get herself an extra sweater which she did. I then proceeded to up the heat some more to get the kitchen nice and warm for the remainder of breakfast. After a few minutes, I still felt cold so I ran to check the thermostat. 62 degrees it read. I was about to faint. I had set it to 72, why was it at 62? I shook my husband out of his deep sleep accusing him of not paying the bill when he just mumbled to me that he was cold, go away, and of course he paid the bill and he had no idea what I was talking about.

I sent the children off to school in many layers and then ran outside to check my oil tank indicator. Sure enough, it had cracked from the cold and all that remained was an orange floaty device. Great. I called my fuel company. The assured me that my tank should technically have at least a half a tank of oil, they would send someone out immediately. I reset my oil burner, but it shut right off.

The delivery man came, we had plenty of oil. The repair man showed up, the house was nice and warm. The oil burner started working again after I decided to reset it just one more time. However, we of course overdo for an oil burner cleaning and that is what caused it to shut off. This would only happen on the COLDEST day of the year so far. Otherwise what fun would it be?

My real question here is, what is with mothers? Are they supposed to make you doubt yourself and question the very basics of what we take for granted? I am sure my mom only had the best interests at heart when she called to check if I had heat. But what possessed her to think that I wouldn't have heat? Why would she call me like that and put all those doubts in my mind? I wonder if my thousands of doubts somehow called on the universe to make my oil burner turn off so that I would have this story to blog about and make my mother "right." But "mom is always right" will be in a post for another time.