In some ways, I am a very simple man. And some of my aspirations are pretty straightforward, too. One of my prosaic dreams has always been to have a wood stove or fireplace in my home.
Some friends or relatives who have been to my home might remark: “Um, Tim, you have a fireplace.”
This is technically true — we do have a gas fireplace in the family room. But it fell into disuse and I suspect some animals have blocked the chimney — it has been years since we were able to use it. The last time we tried (during an extended power outage) it filled the whole house with an unpleasant oily smell. Even back in the day when the fireplace did work, it wasn’t very warm — seemed like most of the heat went straight up the chimney.
This year marked the culmination of years of doing absolutely nothing in my pursuit of this dream, yet somehow I have achieved it. It all started in the days after Thanksgiving, when I began to troll the pages of Amazon.com for their Cyber Monday deals.
I was happily scrolling through dozens of things I suddenly ‘needed’ (yet had never before known existed) when I saw it: a cute little electric stove. It was marked down about 40%, and I with a click of the mouse, it was shipped to my home! (Amazon’s Prime shipping and one-click shopping is WAY too easy.)
A man and his fake electric stove are not easily parted.
As it happened, I was home alone on the day the large, indiscreet Duraflame box was delivered, so I secreted it away in the garage behind rows of bins and random furniture, intending for it to be rolled out on Christmas morning.
Sadly, I am not as young as I once was, and my memory is far from perfect. Christmas came, and Christmas went, and I forgot all about my little treasure.
About a week ago, on the eve of Rachel’s rescheduled birthday party, I suddenly remembered it. Rescuing it from garage oblivion, I installed it happily in our living room, where it fights valiantly against the moaning of the wind and the loss of heat through our poorly-insulated windows. Finding one more Christmas present so long after the holidays proved to be a cheerful respite from January blues.
Now we tend to sit in the living room staring at the fake little electric ‘flames’ and feeling the warm air pour out from the fan at the bottom of the heater … it is a perfect size and capacity for our room, and lends our home a warm, inviting ambience.
Now if I can just remember where I put some of the other presents I bought …
Tim
…and its so early in the year to have fulfilled such a long-term dream. Congrats.