Except I’m not fighting furnaces, no, my nemesis is this fucking goddamn fucking piece of fucking shit fucking goddamn fucking water heater. The pilot has blown out three times just this month. It blew out once in June, once in April, once in March, and once in January, so it’s increasing in frequency. Of course, I never find out that it’s blown out until I’m in the shower and the water never comes up to temperature.

No one else ever discovers it and brings it to my attention, and every time I walk past the water heater and check to see that the little LED is flashing once every three seconds, it always is, so I only ever find out by freezing my ass off in the shower, after someone else has used what hot water remained in the tank since the pilot went out.

Buy a house, they said. It’s a good investment, they said. Eat my ass.