On empty

As the snow began coating the dozens of trees in our front yard and snowplows rushed by our driveway tonight, David and I heard a bothersome sound. It was almost as if wind were blowing across our chimney tops in slow, guttural gusts. But it didn't have the usual resonance of windy weather. So I cracked open the front door to get a better look at the trees. Hmm... no wind.

The sound was still there. I asked David to turn down the TV and craned my neck toward the sound. Is it coming from the back door? Open... listen... nope. Hmm.

So I stand quietly at the top of the staircase that leads to our basement and concentrate on the whooshing whistling noise. I think it's in the basement. Down I go to investigate (just to ease your minds... this isn't one of those spooky movies/stories where the less-than-intelligent-un-heroine walks toward the serial killer because she hears a strange noise).

It's left off the staircase... toward the furnace. Ugh. It's the furnace. It's chugging. It's brand-new, and it's chugging. What IS it with my family and furnaces? It was almost a year ago to the day when I was just beginning my second trimester of pregnancy when a repair technician gave me a scolding look and said, "you're lucky you didn't burn your house down with this thing." Oh goody. Fast forward a loan from my parents for $4,600 (which included an air conditioner and duct work), and we had a shiny new furnace to heat our house.

Ah... heating our house. Out here in the country, people don't use electric heat much. It's all about liquid fuels or sometimes a money-friendly wood burner. Our house is heated by green-stealing fuel oil to the tune of a 2,000-gallon beast of a tank buried in our front yard. If you've got your calculators handy, you'll estimate that at a low-ball guess of $3.50/gallon with tax, our fuel mammoth costs $7,000 to fill.

Lucky for us, we don't burn 2,000 gallons of fuel oil each winter—particularly not with our snazzy new furnace. And just a few weeks ago we were lauding the efficiency of our new machine; why this time last year, we'd drained our bank accounts of roughly $1,300 already in futile hope of quenching the thirst of our fuel-oil monster. This year, we've only spent $800. The savings!

It was only four weeks ago that I checked the level of our tank. That's a sight to see, by the way. There is no gauge. There is a measuring stick. A HUGE stick. The biggest I've ever seen. You slowly feed this giant stick into the pipe in the middle of our front yard, and it when it hits bottom, you wait a few seconds. You pull up the stick—the visible notches reading about 12' and higher at rock bottom—and you see how many inches of fuel are in the tank. It's just like the guy (or gal) at the oil-change place when they do the obligatory, "here's where your oil levels are now" demonstration after they fill you up.

Four weeks ago, we had 12 inches of fuel. More math (and this is where I could be VERY wrong): our tank is supposed to be 6' x 6' ish... or roughly 72 inches square...which means every square inch should hold nearly 28 gallons of fuel. So 12 inches of fuel... that should be nearly 330+ gallons. Plenty for two months, right? WRONG!

David trudged out in the snow tonight at 9 PM with the big stick. We had four inches of fuel, or what we thought was 112 gallons. Apparently not. Around 10 PM, I noticed the furnace wasn't clicking on as often. At 11 PM, I noticed it was colder. At 11:15 PM, David called our fuel oil company and left a we're-out-of-fuel, please-come-help-us-out-in-the-morning message. And at 11:25, he slid out of the driveway, in this winter mess, en route to Wal-Mart to purchase a space heater. It's 66 degrees in our house right now—plenty warm to keep Noah comfy in his flannel jammies and fuzzy blanket. But I know from experience that by morning, it'll be more like 55. Brr.

So it's a chilly night at the McCallen house. Tomorrow will surely be an interesting day. I'm supposed to be working from home, with Noah, per my usual routine. With the 7–9 inches of expected snow on the way, I know that venturing out won't be an option... not with an 8-month-old and a nervous snow driver in a mommy. Instead, Noah and I will hang out here and live like people used to in the good old days... in many layers, huddled around our "fire," waiting for the men (aka: the oil guy and daddy) to come rescue us.

Stay safe and warm, everyone!