Cheap Cold

8^th November 2012

Dear Cassi,

       

Out where I live cold is almost a joke, and the word freezing is applied to temperatures well above water turning to ice. Still, I had to wash the kittens who had rolled in their breakfast and were all a bit brown with gravy. Feeling a chill on my own skin I turned the heater on to seventy and forgot about it as it had to do so little work to keep the house at this temperature.

       

Pickles had left the house as soon as the cooler temperatures started and so was not home when I turned the heater on. When he came home he told me that the inspector had advised us not to use the heater until the ducting in the attic was fixed. The kick in the teeth here is that one, he broke the ducts, two, he refused to get the heater fixed because he pays the gas bill, and three, we have used the heater for more than ten years with broken ducting.

       

This I can place as another of his attempts to be cheap. Cheap at the cost of others has always been the Pickles way of living and here we are again. Well, I’ll run the heater anyway and he can get the ducts fixed if it means that much to him.

Never let them grind you down, little sister

Richard Leland Neal