Way back in early February, Amy and I were finding ourselves using the fireplace in the rental house just about every night. We’d had a couple of weeks of snowfall, and the temperature kept dropping, and with the price of heating oil, a little open flame in the living room was a welcome addition to our nightly TV viewing. It was a struggle keeping the house warm at times.
The rental house, while located right on the beach, and roomy enough for us to entertain guests, was a bit of a barn. It’s a summer place, with an open floor plan, a lot of windows, and a big airy stairway that leads up to the bedrooms. But we were there in the winter, and breezy and open was a bit of a problem. It took a lot to heat the place, and all the windows and open space provided ample opportunity for heat loss. I had to do something about it.
I went around and shut all the doors, and turned down the thermostats in every unused room. Any room we weren’t living in was turned into cold storage. That was easy enough. Then I went to buy some plastic sheeting and blue painter’s tape from the Ace Hardware to close off some of the openings around the stairway, which acted like a big heat chimney. Here’s a picture of the house – see that big glass column on the left side? That’s the open stairway. That’s nothing but heat loss.
After closing off the stairway, I had to tape off the front sunroom, which led to the front porch. It was built over the porch decking material, and there was no sub-flooring or insulation underneath it. The floor was literally open to the elements and really drafty. But that wasn’t the worst of it. After the first big snowstorm, a bunch of snow blew under the doors into the sunroom, and left a big drift basically INSIDE the house.
Okay, a small drift.
Once all this was done, things were better, and the place was able to heat up a little more efficiently. But it was still winter, and still cold. At this point Amy and I started to play a game of cat-and-mouse, where I’d go into a room and turn the thermostat down, and she’d come into a room and turn the thermostat up. And then we’d have one of these debates that’s as old as thermostats themselves:
ME: “Why are you turning up the thermostat in the bathroom?”
AMY: “Because it’s cold up there.”
“Yeah, but you’re downstairs…”
“But I want it to be warm if I have to use it.”
“So turn it up when you get in there.”
“I won’t be in there that long.”
“If you won’t be in there that long, then don’t worry about it…”
And on and on like this until “Bang! Zoom!” and Ed Norton comes lumbering in from a day in the sewers, and asks me if I want to go shoot pool down at the Raccoon Lodge before Trixie gets home…
We soon started lighting a fire every night for some additional heat and ambience. The only issue we faced was finding firewood. It was a real problem here in Maine. When we first moved up, our rental agent told us that most places had already sold all their firewood for the season, and as Amy called around to all the local sources, it turned out the next delivery we could get wouldn’t be until maybe April. Maybe! And as it turns out, it’s actually illegal to bring out-of-state firewood into Maine. So if Amy’s sister ever brought us three boxes of wood when she came to visit from Philadelphia, that would have been illegal, and so she wouldn’t have done that. And the firewood she wouldn’t have brought us would have only lasted us a little over a week anyway, so it’s probably better that she didn’t bring it, due to the illegal nature of the whole thing; a thing that didn’t happen. So about two to three weeks into our stay, we started a desperate search for firewood.
Amy’s sister brought the wine, not the logs.
Thankfully, I remembered that the Ace sold bundles of mediocre firewood at exorbitant prices. With little to no other options available, exorbitant was the exact price I was willing to pay. So over the course of the next two or three weeks, I’d haul myself over to the Ace and pick up a few bundles of firewood. What I found interesting about this wood was that it came in some form of shrink-wrap, and the company name on the shrink-wrap was some French-Canadian consortium. Which got me to wondering: was this firewood French-Canadian? And if it was, wasn’t that illegal? But I wasn’t asking any questions. I needed to keep the house warm, and I wasn’t about to report any Quebecois firewood dealers. Je me souviens, amigos!
Things really started to get pathetic when we began burning Duraflames. I really don’t need to explain this much more, other than noting that my brother sent me a text insisting I had perhaps lived in Manhattan too long. Pre-engineered carbon logs are expensive, and not pretty, and we needed to find another solution.
Note the Duraflames box
Inspired by my brother’s mockery, I turned to the one place that sells everything: Craigslist. I figured if you can find used office furniture, a discrete dalliance, or some inexpensive hit-man on Craigslist, it shouldn’t be too difficult to find some firewood. And I was right. There were a number of listings for firewood, from all over Maine, so I left a message for a guy who seemed reasonably priced and delivered to our area. He called me back. It was like a junkie trying to score some wood.
“This John?”
“Yeah, that’s me.”
“Yeah, how much wood do you need?”
“Probably about a half of a cord.” (What the hell did I know?)
“Okay, we got oak and maple and birch.”
“Um…yep, that all sounds good.” (What the hell did I know?)
“Okay, but um, I think the best I can do you is a cord.”
“A full cord?”
“Yep. Don’t really do halves.”
“Okay, well, we need the wood, so sure, a full cord.”
I figured he’d tell me the first taste was free, but instead he quoted me a price that was even more than he listed in the ad. I was ignorant and desperate, and I didn’t feel like heading back to the damn Ace to buy more Canadian wood and Duraflames. We made all the arrangements, but then a big snowstorm hit, leaving a few more feet of snow on the ground. He called and rescheduled for another less-snowy day. But sure enough, that day he showed up with a dump truck full of firewood, and promptly got stuck in a snow bank in front of the house.
This is how tall the snowbanks were.
I’m not sure what this fellow’s job history looks like, but I can only assume he was once in the Navy, or perhaps the Merchant Marine, because for the next hour or so, he cursed like a sailor as we tried to get that dump truck backed into the driveway. He said some words I didn’t even know existed, and I’ve seen things in Thailand that would make your hair curl. The driveway entrance was narrow, and had been plowed so much that massive snowbanks lay on either side. Every few feet, he’d back up the dump truck, hit a bank, and get stuck. Then the tires would spin, and we’d dig out the wheels, and he’d lurch it back and forth and back and forth until things would catch. Then it would happen again, and we’d go through this same dance repeatedly, until finally he got fully into the driveway, picked out a good spot, and dropped a pile of firewood about four feet high.
Amy came out to offer him a fresh-baked cookie, and I asked him if he wanted a beer, but he wanted nothing more than to high-tail it out of there like a guy who’s just crop-dusted an elevator. Meanwhile, I had on little more than a down vest over a light jacket, and a crappy pair of fleece gloves that were covered in ice by this point. My fingers were purple, and I was numb to the bone. I wasn’t expecting to be out there over an hour in sub-zero temperatures.
Back before the mailbox was buried.
That night it started snowing again. I feared the pile would be iced over by morning, so I grabbed the remaining plastic sheeting from the stairway drill, and covered the firewood. The next morning, sure enough, there was a five-foot tall mountain of snow in the driveway, and somewhere under it lay a pile of firewood. I decided I’d need to move this firewood into the basement if it was going to be of any use.
The good news was that the house has a side door that leads directly into the basement. The bad news was that the path to this door was under two feet of snow. So I spent the next morning shoveling the path to the door, working up a fierce sweat, and using some of the new words I’d learned from the firewood guy, which I surmise may have a French-Canadian etymology, considering his occupation. My plan was to spend my lunch hour every day (I work from home) bringing in as much wood as I could, until I had it all stacked nicely in the basement. On Day One I moved what seemed to be about 100 logs, maybe one-fifth of the pile. On Day Two, I did the same thing, working out a system – move a pile to the door, open the door, and move the pile into the basement. All was working well and progressing nicely. Until Day Three.
On Day Three I was hit with an unexpected roadblock. As usual, I put on the down vest and fleece gloves and went out the basement door. I moved the first pile of logs to the door, and got ready to go into the basement. But when I went to open the basement door, it wouldn’t open. It was locked. I had somehow locked myself out, with no phone, a good fifteen-minute walk from town. A text message notification went off in my head: perhaps I had lived in Manhattan too long.
After mumbling a litany of mostly American and possibly French-Canadian curse words, I went around the house to check the back door we used most often. This door was locked, too, so I trudged through the snow to the front deck and those doors by the sunroom, which were not only locked, but taped shut with a double layer of blue painter’s tape. The windows were all locked as well. I moved some more firewood to keep warm, but eventually went to the front porch, leaned against the railing, and looked out into the ocean. I was locked out of our house. I was getting colder. I was screwed.
Locked out of the sunroom.
Just then a car drove by and I tried to wave it down, but they were looking at the ocean and didn’t see me. But it gave me an idea. Down the street was a parking lot where people would sometimes park and eat lunch and stare into the ocean, even in the dead of winter. I would go there, ask to borrow a cellphone, and call the local gendarmerie.
When I got to the parking lot, sure enough, I found a couple sitting in a car, looking out over the ocean. I wasn’t really sure what to do, or how to approach them. I mean, maybe they were in the throes of some romantic rendezvous, a pair of office co-workers, surreptitiously meeting without the prying eyes of the gossiping staffers in Accounts Payable. Or perhaps it was a Craigslist hook-up, with two oversexed bedmates who like lunch dates and winter walks on the beach. Or maybe it was just the opposite! Maybe she was hiring him, a discount Craigslist assassin, to have her husband done off in some sort of ruthless insurance swindle! There it was, the face of evil itself, parked next to the beachfront playground!
The parking lot view.
I cautiously approached the window, trying not to startle the curly-haired woman behind the steering wheel. She spotted me out of the corner of her eye, and curiously rolled down the window. Her skinny accomplice leaned over from the passenger side to get a better look. She had a container of salad in her lap, and he was eating a sandwich. Roast beef and lettuce, from what I could see, on white bread, with some kind of cheese. A measly down payment for a murder.
“Uh…hi. I’m sorry to disturb you, but I just live over there, and I accidently locked myself out of my house. I was wondering if I could use your phone to call the police?”
The co-conspirator with the jet-black perm was very kind and offered me her phone without hesitation. I called 911 and was soon speaking with someone at the Kennebunk Police Department. The raven-haired felon didn’t even flinch as she eavesdropped on my call to the cops.
ME: “Yeah, I’m terribly embarrassed, but I locked myself out of my rental house, and I was wondering if I could get some help getting back in?”
911: “You locked yourself out?!”
“Yes, ma’am.” (“Because I’m an idiot, and I lived in Manhattan too long,” I thought).
“Okay, what’s your address?”
I told her all the details.
“Okay, and do you have somewhere you can go and stay warm?”
I thought about talking to my new friend with the fright wig, but thought better of it.
“I’ll be okay, I have my boots on and everything, so…I’ll just wait on the porch.”
“Okay, we’ll send an officer to help you out, it could be ten minutes or so.”
“No problem.”
About ten minutes later, a squad car pulled up, and out stepped Officer Carney of the Kennebunk Police Department. I knew that because he introduced himself as “Officer Carney,” and his nametag read “Carney,” so I didn’t doubt him. I told Officer Carney about the situation. He was completely nonchalant, like schmucks from New York are regularly locking themselves out of houses in Kennebunk every week. But he was very gracious and understanding, and we immediately set out to find a solution.
Officer Carney and I walked the perimeter again, looking at doors and windows, and finding no means of ingress that wouldn’t be considered a B&E. We chatted the whole time – he got the lowdown on our move, and I found out he lived in the area most of his life. He was an incredibly nice, down-to-earth guy. Eventually we came to the conclusion that we should maybe just call the rental agent to see if she had a spare key, and if not, we’d call a locksmith. Officer Carney invited me to warm up in the car while he had dispatch call the rental agent, and sure enough, she had a key. We were soon on the move. I buckled up, for safety, like all vehicular passengers should, particularly those riding in a police car.
We chatted about the weather a bit, and then I told him, “You know, this is the first time I’ve ridden in the FRONT of a police car!” I thought it was the greatest line since I saw Buddy Hackett’s HBO comedy special in 1983. But I got the feeling Officer Carney’s heard that kind of thing before, despite the accuracy of the statement. We eventually got to the rental agent’s, and I sheepishly went in and got the key, returning to find my police escort waiting outside.
Once got back to the house, Officer Carney waited until I safely opened the door. I thanked him profusely, and gave him one last line about “hope I see you again, but under the right circumstances!” which is likely about as funny to him as “how’s the weather up there?” or “I got ‘em ALL cut!” But like stranded dump trucks, or getting paid in sandwiches, I suppose it all comes with the job.
From then on, I would leave the back door unlocked, and take a key with me just in case. And by the end of the week, I had all the firewood out of the snow and thawing in the basement. Of course the wood was way too green, and it snapped and popped like Rice Krispies when you burned it, but at least we had firewood.
Every time we pass a local patrol car, I turn to Amy and ask, “I wonder if that’s Officer Carney?” as if he’s going to wave hello, or stop his cruiser and ask, “Hey – how’d that firewood thing work out?” Or maybe he’ll flag us down one day and say, “Excuse me, but we’re looking for a pair of killers who used to eat lunch up by your old rental place – one’s a lady with curly black hair, the other’s a skinny fella whose hands smell like cheese.” I’ll have no reliable leads, other than the nutritionally challenged choice of white bread. Maybe that’s why the hired gun was so skinny.
Eventually, as winter turned into spring, I took down all the plastic and painter’s tape, and cleaned out the fireplace, and we moved to our new house. And when the summer came, the debates turned to opening every window (“I can’t sleep with those birds yapping every morning!”) and turning on the ceiling fans full blast (“It’s like living in a wind-tunnel here! I imagine Indiana Jones is gonna fist-fight some shirtless Nazi in our living room any minute!”). Sure, it’s hot now, but pretty soon we’ll be getting ready for winter again. Which means ordering wood well ahead of schedule, and carrying a house key at all times.
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