KHW #8: There’s no thermostat in Hell.

I don’t really know what time it is right now, but I’m pretty sure I should be asleep. I also know that the past several hours, which I would rather have spent in blissful slumber, have slipped by in a haze of goosebumps and sweat – a losing battle with the heater in room 122.

This heater has two knobs: one, ostensibly, to control the “temperature” (red for warm / blue for cold) and one to control the flow of air into the room (‘low heat’, ‘high heat’, ‘low cool’, ‘high cool’, ‘fan’ and ‘off’). My 1994 Hyundai Excel had a remarkably similar onboard system.

Since it’s Fargo, and since it’s cold, I turned knob #1 into the red, set knob #2 to ‘low heat’ (‘high’ produces something akin to the Santa Ana winds – you could blow-dry your hair in 5 minutes flat), and tucked into bed. I tossed, I turned, and soon realized I was covered in sweat. So I dialed knob #1 down a bit. Still sweating, and also parched. The air this heater kicks out is like, scientifically designed to rob your body of all moisture. Knob #1 goes down a little bit more, and suddenly I’ve got full-on air conditioning, goosebumps, and probably pneumonia, so we notch it up a tad back towards the red, chugging tap water to ward off the eventual drought. This little waltz has been continuing now for well over three hours, during which, like a hypothermia victim in his last moments before the blackness, I have peeled off several layers of sleepwear.

These sheets are like sandpaper, mind you. And I think I’m allergic to their detergent.

Frustrated and exhausted, I’ve just now turned the heater OFF. It’s nine degrees or something outside, so there’s a pretty good chance that some hapless member of the crew will knock on my door in a couple hours, eager to get started on our Starbucks run, and find me naked, frozen, and curled up under the television. (Terminal burrowing. Google it.)

~~~~~~~~~~
edit:

OH HEY WOW AWESOME! When the heater is “OFF”, it will still rouse itself for brief (but loud!) periods to spew COLD AIR across the bed! Life couldn’t get any better. I think I’ll just wander out into the street and die now, jesus christ.