WE HAD A HEATING EMERGENCY!

The reason I posted the Saint Lucia piece at 1 a.m. is that we ended up being up due to a heating emergency.

The last time we awoke smelling burning plastic was in 1991.  At that time, the relay switch on a freezer in the basement burned out.  At that time, the cellar was filled with pungent smoke, and the fire dept. arrived.

When I got up tonight, I honestly thought toast had been burned in the kitchen.  To my surprise, there was no smell in the kitchen.  The burning smell - like burning plastic - was very strong on the upper levels of the house and determined to be coming out of the heating ducts.

I hardly smelled it in the basement and barely on the first floor.  I am so thankful the church put the most expensive NSTAR gas service contract on the system for all gas appliances in late Nov.  We'd had no service contract for about a year.  It used to be that even if you DIDN'T have a service contrat and you called NSTAR with an emergency they came out.  Be warned.  That policy has changed.  If you do not have a service contract, NSTAR makes no guarantee at all that they'll come out.  That's why the church put the full service contract on the parsonage gas system in November.

The experience of CALLING NSTAR was NOT pleasant.  The first time, I went through voice mail H__l and was disconnected!  The second time I kept saying "Emergency" and eventually (after waiting on hold to nice music) got a person.  What if I was smelling gas?  What if the house was about to blow up?  Do you think I wanted stupid voice mail and holding to nice music?  Of course not!  There ought to be an emergency number you call and get right through with to a "real" person!  Finally, I did get to speak to a "real" person.  The woman asured me someone would be out within the hour.  They always get confused becuase the name on the account is "First Assembly of God".  They THINK they are going to a church building.  I explained it was a residence.  The repairman did arrive in about forty minutes.  I will say he was very good.  He quickly found that a switch in the furnace had burned out.  He had the replacement switch on his truck.  In no more than fifteen minutes, we were back in business.  We were very thankful this turned out well without some big disaster.  The previous very old furnace was replaced wtih a brand new one in late 2001.  Since this one is only 5 years old I hoped it could be fixed pretty easily and I'm glad that was the case.

If there are some "typos" on this piece, please forgive me.  I'm tired and typing at 1:15 a.m.  I hope we won't have any more problems with the heading system for awhile!