Biloxxxi's Woodshed

Saturday had to be one of the most frustrating days in recent memory. I woke up Saturday morning for work and the pipes were frozen, even though I’d left the faucets dripping. That meant that when I got home from work, I’d be unable to take a shower. Freezing cold + Filthy = Awesome. (You can read more about this here.)

I got to work and some douche-nozzle had tried to steal my truck, El Chup, but failed miserably. (Obviously they weren’t aware that a fictional beast cannot be stolen.) They did manage to smash out the vent window which seriously blows, because they are a bitch to install. While cleaning up the glass and attempting to repair the damage with some cardboard, I gashed my wrist. Since it was a grand total of 19 degrees outside, I didn’t notice until the blood started soaking into my sweatshirt.

I’d arranged to take a shower over at Jenn’s house, but she was out running errands after work, so Andrew Tecumseh Crider was supposed to let me in. He is almost completely nocturnal at this point, so he didn’t bother to wake up and let me in until about 4:00. Jenn’s house can also be effectively described as a fortress with these ridiculous dead-bolt screen doors that can only be opened with a key. It took another 15 minutes for Tecumseh to locate a key to open the door. It was like I was 8 years old again, playing The Legend of Zelda. I could see where I needed to be, but I couldn’t figure out how to get there.

After trying every key on every door of the house, he was finally able to get one of these Death Star Portals to open. Three and half hours after I got home from work, I got to take a shower. I’m gonna go out on a limb and say that it was one of the top 5 showers I’ve ever taken. Ahh, sweet sweet warmth.

I hung out with Tecumseh for a bit and knocked back a couple of Dirty Caucasians (a White Russian made with vanilla vodka). That smoothed the edges a bit. Slid things out of focus, if you will. It’s amazing what dairy products and alcohol will do for your life outlook.

Following a brief appearance at a housewarming party where I performed a stirring rendition of Run To The Hills by Iron Maiden, The Wharf Rats decided that a trip to Metalsome Karaoke was in order. If you’re not familiar with Metalsome, it’s just like regular karaoke, except you’re performing with a real band. The crowd gets into it a lot more than a typical karaoke night and it’s really a lot of fun.

A couple of Jenn’s friends joined us and we all grabbed some beers and made our way to the front. Whilst we were rocking out to the soothing sounds of Styx, these cougar-like women burst through our group to get to the front. I’m hesitant to call them cougars. Truthfully, they were more like silver foxes, but since they weren’t attractive at all, we should probably just refer to them as someone else’s problem.

That whole someone else’s problem thing sure didn’t last long though. One of the ladies slammed into Jenn’s friend, Dana, who then bumped her back.

“Don’t shove me, Bitch!” The woman exclaimed.

“Umm, you shoved me. I was getting you off me.” Dana replied.

I missed this exchange, since it was happening behind me and I screaming Mother by Danzig at the top of my lungs. The next thing I knew I was doused in girlie-drink and the cougar-woman was diving head first into a column near the stage. Somehow, possibly because God protects drunks and dumbasses, she avoided slamming her head into the post and merely drove her shoulder into it in an exciting football tackle fashion.

Ladies and gentleman, may I present Exhibit A (the one in the back)

Initially, I thought the woman was in a one person fight and the post won, but as she climbed drunkenly back to her feet, I realized she was seriously pissed at someone. That someone was Dana. I have no idea how she managed to muster the strength to throw that woman who was considerably larger than she was into that post, but I sure did enjoy it. I glanced back at Dana. There was a look of calm in her eyes. She was ready.

Conversely, cougar-lynx woman was enraged. The opportunity was there to step in and stop this before it got out of hand, but probably the most important thing I ever learned being a bartender was never get involved in a girl fight. They will grab hair and scratch you fight all kinds of dirty, even though you’re just trying to break it up. Let the bouncers handle it. I stayed put for the time being, content to see how this battle of good versus evil would play out. Unfortunately, my revelry was cut short by security tackling the cougar-lynx-liger woman.

She was ejected and after a brief explanation, Dana was allowed to stay. We rocked out to a few more songs and decided to head down the street to our favorite watering-hole, Fontaine’s. As we climbed the stairs to get back to street level, there was the cougar-lynx-liger-bobcat woman waiting for us. The girls made a marginally big deal out of this, but the bouncer was right there, and the woman was way too drunk to realize who had hip-checked her into a pillar anyway. No issue there.

We all proceeded to Fontaine’s where we all got inexplicably wasted and did terrible things which were ill-advised, but not regrettable (because you only regret things you didn’t do). All in all, just another standard Wharf Rat Saturday night.

I moved into the Narnia Harem in February of 2009. I knew the girl who lived there previously, and my landlord is her father. We all went out a few times when she was still living there in the dead of winter, so I knew the place could get kind of chilly. It’s an old cottage house, for God’s sake, they aren’t known for their efficiency. I wasn’t deterred. This is Atlanta. We really only have about a month of really cold weather a year, and by the time I moved in, that month was almost over.

My problems started in December. After 10 months of warm weather, it finally got cold enough to turn the furnace on. I flipped the switch, and nothing happened. I gave it a good five or ten minutes, still nothing. I checked all the circuit breakers and they were all kosher. I even went around to the furnace unit out back and poked it with a stick, cause that works well for homeless people. Still no luck.

I called up the caretaker guy that lives in the house in front of mine. He came out and took a look at it and discovered that the blower on the furnace had frozen up. “Easy enough fix.” He said, and I was back in the heat business.

December was relatively mild, so I didn’t turn on the furnace unless it got really cold. I did notice that when I turned on the furnace it ran almost non-stop. That was a bit worrisome.

December 31st rolls around and just as I was about to head out to this wedding I was in, I looked at my e-mail. My Georgia Natural Gas bill had arrived. I took a gander at it, and immediately lost my shit. It was $197! That’s Dollars American, not Zimbabwean Dollars. Ridiculous.

By this point, it had started getting really cold down here; like 30s for the high. That’s bone-chilling cold for The ATL. I had to leave the heat on while I was gone or everything would freeze. So off I go to enjoy my New Year’s celebration and when I returned the next day my pipes were frozen. I’d left the water trickling and everything. Freakin awesome. I didn’t realize at the time that the temperature would not get above freezing for the next week, so I didn’t really sweat it too much. “They’ll thaw in a few hours when it warms up outside.” I thought to myself.

The temperature never warmed up, and I spent most of the weekend over at Jenn’s house, because that’s where the party was (and where I could take a shower). Sunday night I had to go back home to get ready for work the next morning. I go inside and it’s not exactly warm in there. The thermostat is set to 62, but the temperature reads 54. Something is not right. I know the furnace is working, I can hear it. I can go to the back of the house and feel it blowing out some warm air out of the vent. It’s not nearly as forceful as it should be though.

This got me to thinking. The house has a relatively new furnace, and it’s huge. It ought to be able to heat this place to 62, even if it is relatively drafty. I’ve lived in 100 year-old houses that were way less insulated than this place and they were much warmer. The house used to have one of those old style furnaces that sits just below the floor with the huge grate covering it. The heat register I think it’s called. That unit is still there, but it’s not functional. There’s another smaller grate nearby that I always just assumed was part of the old system because it’s not like the other vents in the house that distribute the heat. I’d never had a heating issue before, so I never thought too much about it.

After a few minutes of logical thought, I got to thinking about where the air for the furnace was being drawn from. “It makes no sense for the air for the furnace to be drawn from outside the house. That must be the intake vent. I’ll check it out in the morning.” I said to myself.

I woke up this morning, changed out of my Spongebob pajamas*, and pulled back the grate in question. Underneath was a layer of cardboard. Never a good sign in a HVAC system. I removed the cardboard and there, much to my chagrin, was the ductwork for the vent laying on the ground two feet below, unattached. I reached my hand down to see if it was working and there was all my heat, being pumped unceremoniously into the crawlspace beneath the house.

This is not a minor issue of simply reconnecting some ductwork. My crawlspace is open, so critters and vermin of various shapes and sizes can just sorta camp out down there at their leisure. As a matter of fact, Narnia is actually run by squirrels, so I’m pretty sure a few of those have probably galloped through there, wreaking havoc on my perfect world, probably nesting and having their disgusting squirrel babies in my heat system. Nope, that whole son of a bitching (I stole that one from George Patton) stretch of duct has to be replaced.

To make matters even worse, I paid my rent yesterday. Nothing quite like dropping over a week’s pay on a house that’s unlivable.

*They’re actually Spider-Man PJs.