"Turn Down the Heat"

We're not quite sure who’s the guilty party, but someone in our home is always leaving the lights on—even during the sunniest of days. Personally, I think Abbey's "the one." Any strange or unusual noise in the house will find her flicking on every light-giving switch—the hallway lights, the family room lights, the bathroom lights, the kitchen lights, the bedroom lights—ALL the lights! And that's no joke. An energy conservationist she is not—people her age aren't programmed to think that way. They believe that the hot water tank is fueled by air. They believe that a thirty-minute shower only uses one gallon of hot water. They believe that every light bulb is the 20-watt variety, and that they can heat the great outdoors by holding open the front door in the middle of January. What they don't know is that their parents must consider second, third, and fourth mortgages to keep up with the energy demand. "Why do you do that?" we ask our children. "I don't know," is what they always tell us.

There are those in my family who say I'm the one who wastes energy—and I don't blame them. I have left a flickering flame to burn beneath an almost-empty pot sending thick, acrid smoke to the ceiling, down the hall, and into the sensitive chambers of our fire alarm—forcing us to open the windows in the middle of winter while we wave out the smoke with bath towels. I've left on the iron, the curling iron, and the flat iron. I've turned up the heat to seventy-five and left it that way all night long. I've left the water running unattended until it spilled over the sides of the sink, onto the first floor, and into the second. And I ask myself, "Why do I do that?" The answer is always the same: "I don't know."

It's usually the father (it is in ours and is probably in yours) who, with a bent towards exaggeration, proclaims, "Every single light in the house is on!" or, "You've been in the shower for an hour!" And it's usually the father who turns down the heat to sixty teeth-chattering degrees at night in order to save fuel oil. Randy does this. In fact, he does every night. And every night, he sits by his computer with a space heater to warm him as he works. Last night, he left it on—all night long. I realized what he had done at 6 o'clock in the morning when I went downstairs to his normally chilly office, which was abnormally warm. I was shocked. Our ever efficient, energy conservationist left our 1,200-watt space heater on—for eight hours. I ran upstairs to inform him, "Rand, you left the space heater on last night—that 's like burning twelve, 100-watt light bulbs all night long!" Putting myself in his shoes, I asked him, "Randy, why did you do that?" He pulled the covers away from his face and looked at me, "I don't know," he said. “I don’t know…”