DuBose: Furnace filter change not as easy as it looks
Holy smokes. I was in the process of changing my furnace filter Monday morning when the plastic wrap from the new filter was sucked right out of my hands and into the furnace. Who does that?
“That could only happen to you,” my Aunt Kathy commented later. No kidding.
What ensued was a scary rattling sound and the smell of melting plastic, and worries about the cost of a new furnace – and, of course, the cost of a new house. Because, naturally, I was sure the furnace would blow.
I’ve since learned that that was unlikely, but how did I know? I write stories. I’m lucky I even know where the furnace filter thingy is.
I raced upstairs and switched the thermostat to “off,” but the furnace didn’t go off immediately so I called the number on the little sticker on the thermostat cover (good idea, those stickers) and the nice lady at the heating and cooling company suggested I flip the switch on the furnace. What a novel idea, I thought, wishing it had occurred to me to do that in the first place. She may as well have told me to go play in the volcano in the basement, though, scared as I was to go back down there, but I did as I was told. It took me a minute to locate the switch but I managed to turn it off and the awful rattling subsided. What to do next? The nice lady said someone would call me back. Right.
So I ran back upstairs and herded my pets – well, the ones I cuddle with, anyhow (the dog and the cat) – onto the enclosed back porch, where I figured they’d be slightly safer in the event of a furnace explosion. (It might be “off,” I reasoned, but what did I know?) I felt relieved that my children weren’t home to get blown up – or to see me diss our pet rat and our three Hermit crabs, and then I wondered, what sort of person prioritizes their pets based on the gratification they provide? In my defense, our littlest pets were in their respective habitats in opposite corners of the house. But still. It’s amazing the concerns one manages to conjure during a perceived crisis.
I made Mike, the poor guy who called me back, stay with me on speaker phone while he coached me through how to remove the metal panels on the furnace so I could retrieve the plastic. He said he figured it was just sitting inside the “drum” – which I could see but couldn’t see into – and hadn’t been in there long enough to do any damage.
“You want me to stick my hand in that thing?” I asked.
“You turned it off. It’s OK,” he reassured me. Sure thing, I thought, unconvinced, and decided I’d prefer to see what it was I would be sticking my hand into. I needed a flashlight, so I left the phone in the basement while I sprinted back upstairs to rummage around in my one of my kitchen’s ‘junk’ drawers. The first flashlight I found was dead, of course, but I finally found one that worked and headed for the basement stairs. But I couldn’t open the door! The old glass knob was missing. I’d forgotten that on one of my earlier sprints down the stairs it had come off in my hand (one of the charms of living in a 133-year-old house) and been accidentally flung into a pile of dirty laundry. Beautiful.
By the time I finagled the door open and got back downstairs, Mike was chatting with a co-worker. I’d apparently left the speaker on, so I could hear bits of his side of the conversation. Something about “this lady … plastic … helping her … she’s got us on speaker, so ... .” Yeah. You get the idea. It was hilarious. At least I gave them something to laugh about over lunch!
It’s a good thing my children weren’t also witnesses their mother’s silliness. And they wonder what I do all day.
• Jennifer DuBose is a contributor for the Kane County Chronicle. She lives in Batavia with her husband, Todd, and their two children, Noah and Holly. She can be reached at jenniferdubose@msn.com.
