211218 Sentinel, The Christmas Present

I smiled at this one as I wrote it.

Things aren't always the way they seem.

I had been out of the Navy for two years and nine months, Christmas 1976. I had left the service with what seemed a substantial sum of cash for the times, but money had slid through my fingers, a large down payment on our home, a large outlay to remodel a burned out cabin on the property to house my TV shop, a harsh economic recession and a TV repair business that while I had the technical knowledge to run, I did not have the business acumen to keep afloat.

All these factors and more led to what looked like a bleak Christmas. I did manage to find what seemed to be a perfect Christmas gift for Joyce and myself, an electric blanket. We had been keeping the house as cool as we could stand to save on heating costs, so this seemed perfect. The weather took a turn for the worse, so we opened our gift early and Joyce was so happy at the thought of sleeping in a warm bed that night. The electric blanket was a beauty, we put it on the bed and set each side’s control to midrange. By the time we went to bed, the bed was toasty warm. Both of us let out a happy sigh as we slid under the covers. In no time we were sound asleep. Joyce woke up about two hours later and was too warm, so she turned down the setting on her control. I woke up an hour later and thought the setting on my side was somewhat cool, so I bumped it up. Joyce woke up shortly after and was still too warm so she turned her side completely off. I woke up an hour later and was still cold so I turned my side all the way up, thinking I was going to have to take the blanket back to the store and get a refund.

We were having coffee the next morning when the conversation about the electric blanket came up. Joyce said: “that thing is no good, I got so hot I kept turning it down, but it wouldn’t turn off.” “Well that’s weird,” I replied, “my side kept getting so cold it seemed like the blanket wasn’t working at all.” Then the light went on in my head, the controls had no marking on them, what if they were switched? I raced into the bedroom and turned one side on full, and turned the other side off. I had the answer in about 15 minutes. My control was the one for her side of the bed and her control was on my side. I switched the controls and we had years of wonderfully warm comfortable sleeping after that.