Perpetual Ruminations

Venting

As the title proclaims, this entry is about venting.

There are three types of venting:
1) To give free expression to.
2) Discharge or expel through an outlet.
3) Permit air to enter through an inlet.

These are simplified but describe venting well enough.

Actually, now that I've written this out, there is one type of venting, since number one is inhaling and then discharging some hot air to get something off one's mind: basically, the same thing as numbers two and three, permitting air, gas, liquid, etc... to flow in or out accordingly.

I'm venting in two directions. One is my lack of sleep last night due to the elevated temperature in our apartment, it was up to 80 degrees. In the other direction, I opened windows with an outside temperature of about five degrees to decrease the temperature inside.

Why did it get so damn hot? The answer is easy to explain, one word in fact; dingbat. You know, like Edith Bunker. Well, that's been a while, so maybe you don't know. we live in a duplex, two units side by side, or more accurately one unit in front and one in back. We live in the back, and since this area of Minnesota is wooded, I refer to it as, "We live back in the woods."

The woman who lives in front is the dingbat. Now, I'm not being mean or rude, she truly is a dingbat. She informed me a while back, that her ceiling was slowly getting lower, and wondered if ours was, too. I told her ours seemed to be fine. She then informed me that she had a spider plant suspended over her counters and that when she first put it up, there was a good foot (I wondered what a bad foot measured) between it and the cupboards. Now, just over a year later, there was maybe six inches between the hanging plant and the cupboards. Dingbat. Still not convinced? Last summer she wandered back onto our side and saw Hurricane, our chicken (yes we have a pet chicken we rescued, but that's another story for another day). She asked me what our turkey's name was. Dingbat!

So, anyway, Edith (name changed to protect the ignorant) is gone more than she's home. She turns the heat down when she leaves and then cranks it all the way up to heat the place up quickly when she returns. This is what she did last night.

Now, normally this wouldn't be a problem, but both units operate off one boiler, which is on our side. Yes, a boiler system; hot water heat. So, when she cranks the thermostat up to heat her unit quickly, it doesn't heat quickly, but the boiler runs constantly until her side does warm up. Meanwhile, the boiler is kicking out a lot of heat on our side and it gets hotter than Hades in here.

I tried to explain this to her, but she's a Dingbat and is trying to counter global warming and cut heating costs. For one, doing this with a boiler system does nothing to lower costs or diminish global warming. In fact, it likely increases both. For two, our heat is included so there is no cost accrued to either of us. But, there is no explaining this to her, she just cannot comprehend it. The landlord also tried to explain this to her but walked away shaking his head after she informed him of her ceiling getting lower. (I wanted to tell her it's from constantly adjusting the thermostat, but that she likely would have believed)

All I can say is, at times like last night, it's hot in here, too hot to sleep, so I need to vent. Vent out my despair of how dingy she is, and vent in some cooler air. There is an upside, I can actually relate to Charlie Brown feeling sick when trying to explain anything to Lucy...