COLD COLD COLD

It was a very cold winter in Utah, the snow started falling early and the temperatures were at record lows. I was living in a one bedroom, cinder block wall, basement apartment with my best friend. We were young and we were poor. It seemed that we were scrounging up change from the couches so we could pay our rent and utility bills from month to month.

The largest bill of the month was always the gas bill. We decided that we had to cut the cost of our gas bill for December so we could have extra money for Christmas. We came up with the best idea ever… We decided to turn OFF the heat starting November 1 and it would remain off until December 1. We were going to go an entire month in the freezing cold weather without turning the heater on.

We did not think it would be that hard since we both had full time jobs and were gone from 8 am – 5 pm every day. We’d have only a few hours every evening before going to bed that we’d need to endure the chill of winter night.

We’d try to find friends house to go to after work so we’d have a few extra hours of warmth. We added extra blankets to our bed, slept in triple layers of clothing with hats on our heads. We’d pull the covers over our noses so the chill of the air would stay out. We covered all of our windows with heavy blankets so we could keep any heat we had in the apartment. No extreme was to far. We’d do what we had to do because the payoff would be huge!

Once you finally fell asleep it did not seem so bad. But those cold mornings while you were getting ready for work were the worst! I’d get in the shower and stay in there an extra twenty minutes soaking up the heat. I’d use the heat from the blow dryer to warm my body while I was getting ready. I consumed more hot chocolate that month that I’ve consumed in my life time, drinking it would help thaw my body from the inside out.

Every day seemed to be colder than the day before. But we had made a pact to leave the heat off and we both stuck to it. We were convinced by enduring the cold that our bill would be reduced by at least eighty to ninety percent.

Finally the day we had been anticipating for a month had come. The day of truth. Our gas bill had arrived in the mail. We were giddy with excitement as we opened the bill, knowing that we had followed our plan, left our heat off and endured the misery of the cold winter month. Our month of chilly nights was sure to pay of for us!

We opened the bill and to our shock….. The bill had DOUBLED!!!!!! That is right, all of our cold days were in vein… our bill had DOUBLED! How could this be? We did not understand! We followed the no heat for a month plan and all we have to show is a bill of double what it was the month before?

We immediately called the gas company and asked them to come and re check our gage. They said they would do so but it would take a few days. We paced the house waiting for the gas company to call us back. They finally called us back only to confirm that their reading was correct and that we DID use that much gas and our bill would not be changed.

Fury raced through our veins. There was no possible way this could be correct. We called our apartment managers and asked them how on earth this could be. They sent out a maintenance man to do a thorough check of our apartment. To their surprise they found a leak in the hot water heater. All month long it had been continually leaking out precious gas causing our bill to sky rocket.

We were so disappointed. We felt like we had been taken by the heat monsters. We had to pay for an enormous gas bill and we did not even get to benefit from a warm cozy apartment.
We learned a hard lesson that month. Sometimes what you sacrifice does not pay off like you think it should. The $50 each that we thought we should have saved was not really worth the extremely cold temperatures we endured. However, now we can both say, we survived a cold winter month in Utah with no heat.