Murphy’s law strikes again

Just when I thought I was out of fresh blog topics, it occured to me to recount my latest visit by that damn Murphy character.  I’ve got a little over 4 months of this deployment left and I would really appreciate it if Murphy would stay out of my house.

Decided to turn the heat on tonight b/c it’s getting into the 40s … and there’s where my evening turned interesting. The f*&king pilot light was burnt out. Mother of pearl – I wish that darn thing would stay lit.  (I had a previous episode with the pilot light right after Obi-Wan left for deployment).  I must give a bit of background here.  My furnace is located in the attic of our house and to reach it, I have to use a ladder to climb up into the attic, take the cover off the furnace and then I can see the pilot light.  First, hauling a ladder up a flight of stairs is no easy task and second, I have a heinous fear of heights.  I practically get vertigo on a step stool so you see where I’m going with this.  Climbing into the attic is an emotionally draining experience for me.  After last spring’s episode of having to get the gas valve replaced on my heater and messing with ladders and attics myself, I decided no more, my friend lives 2 miles away and I will call them for help.

In any case, when I turned the heat on, it wouldn’t come on. I called my friend “K” and she sent her DH over and he helped me. It got more interesting b/c the directions I was giving him to turn it on weren’t applicable b/c the pilot light mechanism was different. When the repair man replaced the gas valve earlier this year, I guess some entire component was replaced so the pilot light turn on process was different. There is now some red lever that has to be pushed to the set position or something while you light it. Totally different than before. So my friend’s DH was in the attic and I climbed up and stood on the top rung of the ladder (holding onto rafters for dear life) and we found the instructions for the new component up there (why the repair man didn’t just give them to me, I don’t know) and we figured out how to light it. So the good news is the pilot light is lit and the heat is working.

I thanked my friend’s DH profusely and told him I’d have been cussing up a storm and screaming probably trying to do this by myself after the last heating debacle. I sent him home with 4 gigantic chocolate chip muffins that I made yesterday.