Infidelity, lack of communication, money issues… these rank near the top on any list of reasons for marital discord. I’ve got to believe, however, that being a different body temperature than your spouse is somewhere on the list, too. Heather and I get along great on the vast majority of things in our life, but the one thing we absolutely cannot agree on is the temperature – of our house, car, hotel room, you name it. If I’m honest with myself though, the source of this temperature problem is me. Whereas Heather can handle hot and cold weather like a normal person, my body goes haywire the moment the weather takes even the slightest change from the norm.

It gets pretty hot in the summer where we live and as a result our house gets stuffy and uncomfortable. Unfortunately, running the air conditioner can be obscenely expensive and would cost nearly four hundred dollars a month if I ran it as much as I wanted. Because of this Heather rightly refused to run the air conditioning this summer and instead made a habit of opening the windows. She thought that cooled things off considerably, but I most definitely did not. Somewhere in the middle of the summer I broke down and turned on the air conditioning. This brought Heather stomping into the room, less than pleased.

“What do you think you’re doing? You want our electric bill to be four hundred dollars this month?”

I did not want our bill to be four hundred bucks, but by that point the heat had made me lose all sense of reason.

“Would it be four hundred dollars a month?” I asked. “Or would it be just a little more than twelve dollars a day?”

“That’s the same thing.”

“Yes, it is, and I say twelve bucks is a small cost to pay to make us feel comfortable all day long.”

That line of reasoning didn’t work very well, so the next day I tried another tack. I told Heather I was running to Starbucks for an iced latte and asked her if she wanted one.

“Sure,” she said. I smiled. She’d taken the bait.

“You want me to get you some of that biscotti you love, too?”

“Why not.”

“Aha!” I shouted like a Southern trial lawyer. “So you would be fine with me spending twelve dollars at Starbucks, but not on running the air conditioning?”

“What?”

“I propose that we forget about the coffee and biscotti, and instead turn on the sweet, sweet AC!”

Heather was not amused. Suffice to say, I did not get to run the air conditioning.

As much as I hate the heat though, it’s the cold that really slays me, and lately its been getting pretty frigid at night. Well, frigid to me at least. While Heather has been going to bed wearing shorts and a T-shirt, I’ve done the same wearing heavy socks, sweatpants, and a heavy sweatshirt. I also throw a blanket over me before pulling up the covers. Heather thinks I’m nuts, but has been pretty accepting of this until the other night when I said, “Do you know where that snow hat is that we bought when we went skiing?”

mike

“Why?” Heather asked suspiciously.

“Well, I still feel pretty cold at night -”

“No way! You are not wearing a snow hat to bed! I am drawing the line! This is Southern California, not Siberia.”

“Okay, forget it.”

“I swear, Mike, you act like you’re a little old lady.”

I will admit that I do act like a little old lady, but I can’t help it. For whatever reason I’m no good in the cold. Or the heat. Or just about any of the temperatures in between. I’m going to do my best to not act like a complete crazy person this winter, but I have to warn Heather – if I find that snow hat all bets are off!