He chose to rearrange the gas boiler settings to trim winter costs. The plan is to cut the two-hour heating window for the moment, yet the question remains which part of the day to trim: the early morning hour or the late-night hour. He works through the morning and rests after dark. Which is harsher—cold typing at dawn or cold TV watching at night? An expert warned that cooling the house too much can backfire, making heating more expensive later; what you gain on one side can be lost on the other. Blankets are handy, but when the chill penetrates to the bones, they merely trap it inside.
Cold.
It has been a lifelong battle. The speaker recalls growing up with cold as a constant companion, convinced that the chill would outlast every effort. Wool socks in mid-summer are worn to keep the feet warm because they seem to suffer most from low temperatures. Feet often feel numb, almost dead to the point where they never truly warm. One could walk over hot coals and not burn, because the sensation is more about the fear of heat than the heat itself. Since November, Eskimo-style boots have become common, and a friend who is an electrician tried a heated resistor concealed in the boots’ lining. Yet the temperature only nudges up a few degrees. In stories of old, there is a sense that the person believed victory over the cold was already at hand, even as concern grew about rising gas costs. The saying goes that paying two hundred euros on television could lead to eight hundred euros in costs elsewhere.
The boiler sits as a high-tech device, with a control panel that offers options for on and off cycles, comfort temperatures, holiday modes, and many other settings that no longer matter in the current moment. The gadget is so sophisticated that it has not been understood since its installation, and it treats the user with the same level of mutual confusion. The control and the user don’t speak the same language, so the owner began tinkering with it wildly. Instead of reducing the two-hour heating, the effort ended up extending it to eight hours. A house can feel explosive when mismanaged, yet it is the very place where feet find life again, if only briefly. Like many people, the speaker’s feet are alive, but there is a constant concern about their cost and feasibility.