When Hell Freezes Over

Ah, where do I begin?

Roughly 1000 Euros of the 1600 Euro water bill stems from a valve that was left open, by my husband (praise the heavens because I won’t be spanked over the sorry episode) in July for approximately two to three weeks. That’s the best guess that our detective work can figure out.

The water company man came out yesterday and told us that nothing is wrong with our water meter. He confirmed what the plumber told me in October when I called her out to check for a leak after the water company sent me a letter telling me that I had used an abnormal amount of water over the preceding twelve months. I just figured that since I was spending more time here during the year, I was using more water. No big deal, if your hobby is lighting 500Euro notes on fire.

On Wednesday, my husband made another grave error. He turned down the thermostat on our central heating system. By Wednesday evening, his malicious action had the opposite effect, and the house was registering a temperature of over 82 degrees Fahrenheit! We had to sleep with the bedroom window open, and even then, despite it being below freezing outside, we were throwing the covers off our sweat soaked bodies.

In San Francisco, we aren’t big oil consumers. We don’t even own a car. We walk to most of our destinations. But here we have an oil-based heating system and so we were feeling particularly guilty, in a way that only liberals are capable of being haunted by ecological guilt, that we were supporting the supranational oil companies and their auxiliary wars by burning our meager oil supplies at a rate that would embarrass even hyper-consumptive Americans.

My husband called the lesbian plumber, who is a very nice person, on Wednesday evening around five. She said she was very busy, because she had just returned from vacation but that she would call him back. She didn’t call back Wednesday night. Thursday morning my husband, impatient American-capitalist that he is, wanted me to call her again, thinking that a female voice would lure her out to our house of domestic horrors. I have my principles, meager as they are, and I refused to be pimped out just to get the heater repaired. And besides, he needed to build his French conversational skills, and he should take this opportunity to engage in today’s lesson entitled, “Convincing the Lesbian Plumber to come to your Mill to Repair your Troublesome Oil Heater.”

As we were having this discussion, Corinne arrived to clean the house. Since she knows all about the problem because she had to deal with it when we were gone in late November, we asked her to call the plumber and explain the dire situation. The plumber, an employee of Madame la Plombier, a seemingly heterosexual male, arrived an hour and a half later.

He diagnosed the conundrum. When my husband turned the heat DOWN with our thermostat, the regulator attached to the heater got stuck at the level which, in English, roughly translates to “SCORCHING HOT SAUNA.” The regulator is broken. The plumber promised that he will have Madame send us an estimate by Monday (the day we leave for Switzerland). If we approve, then they’ll install the regulator while we’re gone. (Of course we’ll approve it. We aren’t going to go through the excruciatingly painful procedure, a pain similar to that of having your toenails pulled out by pliers, of trying to lure another plumber out to give us an estimate.)

The plumber said that he would put the heater at a lower setting, around 17C (we had been keeping our thermostat at the American level of 20C). We should not touch the thermostat. All should be fine until we leave and they replace the regulator.

Mais au contraire! All is not fine. I’m sitting here at the keyboard with freezing hands, a scarf tied around my neck, and three layers of clothing, while a space heater ineffectually blows at my back drying out my already cracking face that is rapidly acquiring the texture of fine Egyptian parchment that’s been locked in a tomb for five-thousand years.

My husband went to the outdoor market this morning to gather the victuals for a small dinner party we’re giving tonight. A dinner party that will have to be held in the kitchen that will be very messy because I don’t have counters and I don’t have a dishwasher (neither of which I want because that would not be in keeping with the authenticity of the décor). We will eat surrounded by greasy pots because we will need to sit in proximity of the oven which will be blaring natural gas heat. The fireplace in the living room isn’t big enough to provide heat to the dining room.

On a cheerier note, to be filed under “Gee My French is Getting Better,” I’m very proud to announce that just before I sat down to write this missive, I reached Monsieur LaGreze on the phone . . . after four days of being ignored . . . and he cheerfully said that he’ll be out to look at our canal problem this afternoon. He’s the guy you beg to come over when your troubles are so grand that you need work done with heavy equipment.

And another heart-warming development I must report: the Count’s canal is flooding his neighbor’s noyer. I’ve got a case of schadenfreude today. That's a nasty German word -- the French aren't so diabolical.

Despite the hardships under which my husband and I are struggling, rest assured knowing that Blanche and Soixante-Douze are fine. They don’t require central heating systems.