BRRR!

The Snakepit Inc. ran out of heating oil yesterday, for reasons having something to do with a computer malfunction at the firm which meant that they forgot to send a truck around last month. I didn't notice the rapidly dropping temperature until I realized that I could see my outcoming breath in the air inside the house. Then things got colder pretty fast and much calling and yelling and pleading took place, and other miraculous events happened, including the arrival of a little man in a little van in lieue of the anticipated large oil truck, because a mere snake goddess cannot KNOW that she has run out of oil (those indicators are too tricky to read and trying to restart the boiler is too technical for her, of course). Then the little man kept going back and forth while carrying canisters of oil which he poured into the empty gut of the oil tank, all the time being menacingly monitored by Henrietta the Hound whose hackles never went down. That is how we got twenty gallons of oil, with the reassurances that more would be coming this morning, in an actual truck, the kind dependable people get instead of the little man and his canisters. Well, he wasn't a little man, rather a fairly large one, but it makes a better story with the little van.

The truck did arrive this morning. Praise all goddesses of ignitable materials and fossils. But then the boiler valve burst. You don't really want to know my mood for today's post or how it feels to move from the multi-layered look of clothing to the soaked-through-and-smelling-of-oil look. It will be interesting to see what, if anything, they send to fix the water valve problem. A temporary stopgap solution is in place right now, so I don't have mittens on though they are ready by the side of the keyboard.

Only women would write about their heating problems in such an excruciatingly boring detail, according to Christopher Hitchens, who just wrote an article about why women are not funny. Something to do with women having all the power in the world and also something to do with the need to have an audience for all those guy jokes about poop and penis problems. And then women don't get the joke until much later, so they mainly laugh on their way home from the standup comedy party. I'm so glad that Hitchens tells me how this world works, because of in vino veritas, you know.

Hmm. Maybe I should get drunk as a skunk while waiting for the valve man.