FoxTrot Classics by Bill Amend for November 06, 2019

keep bundling yourselves, kids, for Any’s never going to raise that thermostat

No. Freezing builds character.

Andy must have been raised in International Falls or someplace like that.

Trust me, 65 in the house and wearing a sweater is much nicer than 32 outside plus wind chill.

Just set the couch on fire. That’ll warm it up in there.

What’s mom doing… running the A/C?

I know it’s just a joke, but it can’t be colder in the house than outside unless she’s running the air conditioner.

My son used to complain that the house was cold in the winter. He was running around in shorts and a T-shirt while wife and I were bundled up in our sweats.

The opposite is even worse. The local library and Lowes hardware run the temperature so hot that the staff wears short sleeves while everyone else who came in wearing jackets and other warm things suffers. I almost passed out at Lowes, once, from the heat.

If your house is colder inside than it is outside in the winter months then there is something SEVERELY wrong with it. In fact that means you are expending energy to make your house colder, so the supposed endgame of saving money by not adjusting the thermostat is contradicted.

In 1979 I worked with a woman who refused to turn on the heater in the company van when she drove to ‘conserve energy like the President asked’. A noble sentiment but we could not convince the idiot that the van heater wasted no energy.

The Mrs is 100% Scot. She does not mid the cold so much as the heat. She liked San Francisco weather, except for the “Frizzy Season” We now live on the east coast of Vancouver Island and it’s not so frizzy. We have always worn sweat pants/sweatshirts in the winter, sometimes with longjohns/janes underneath and a pair of slippersocks or fleece socks depending on the temps. 66 F is just fine in the winter and 80 F is ok in the winter. Cats and dogs help. It was only a three cat night last night. But in a few weeks a dog or two will be joining them. For about a week last winter as many as could fit were on the bed. Then the girls came home from school and BOOM, the animals were in their rooms. Winter is not so bad if you prepare for it. And make sure your critters are brushed.

Usually it is women who find it too cold unless…she is getting hot flashes.

I am so glad I converted to a geothermal furnace a few years ago. No need to torture the family to save money. The power bill stays the same whether the thermostat is set on 68 or 74 or anywhere in between.