Sedona Eye Star Columnist, Harley McGuire

If ya’ll think this is an invitation to a Pity Party – you are wrong. If anything is to be celebrated, it’s that I’m still here to tell you about my latest adventure! 

Now I’m a very tough little doggie dude – as surely you must already be aware. Having survived being mangled by that car some years ago, and then, the recent update on dealing with rotten teeth and the broken jaw again, yep . . . I’m no sissy!

Heck, I’m not even afraid of thunder and lightening. Nope, not me. Mom’s the one who gets crazy and says very naughty words when that lightening hits close to home. Years ago, before my time, guess it indeed smacked a wallop to the roof and water pipes – so maybe the poor woman has reason to get on edge when Mother Nature throws a fit now and then.

When my new adventure started, it was a sunny mid-afternoon. Mom was out doing something in the front yard when there was a big bang that shook the house. She thought it was one of those supersonic blasts that I think come from fast airplanes but there were no planes in sight. A couple of hours later we were both in the house – and the darn noise happened again.

Sometimes we have long-tailed squirrels running on the roof, but none are so big they could shake the house. A neighbor Mom spoke with noticed the same events and – after they continued to occur at random for the next few days – the neighbor said she would call the airport and Mom would call the police department to try and find out what the heck was going on!

Up to now I’d taken it in stride ‘cause after all, I’m no sissy fraidy-cat.

Well, quite by accident, Mom saw that this big box on our roof named a furn-ass had part of one side missing! So she called up the furn-ass fix-it man who put in a new doodad a while back – which was supposed to make the machine work and give us heat. The fix-it man was puzzled but came over and put the panel back in place.

They both scratched their heads because neither knew how the heck such a thing could happen. Those squirrels love to chew electric wiring but no way could they be smart enough to figure out how to get inside that big box.

The noises continued and we still didn’t know the source! Mom once again noticed the cover was off the big box, and the fix-it man kept putting it on again, even drilling new holes and providing new fasteners.

Well, one morning he was due to come back because the darn thing was once again off its hinges. However, Mom had an appointment so she blocked my doggie door – so that I wouldn’t make trouble for the fix-it man when he came to do his job on the roof because she wouldn’t be here.

When Mom came home in the middle of the afternoon, she opened the garage door coming into the kitchen – and I wasn’t there to greet her. Nope!

She called me and called me, panicking to double check that the doggie door was still in place! As Mom walked through the house looking for me, I was too skeered to come out until finally she found me – hiding in the bathtub trying to take refuge in the enclosed shower. She held me tight as I shook pretty hard. Because I only know woof-speak, all I could do was try to convey that there was danger, danger, danger!

Then we heard the big “boom” and Mom went out to check the roof. Sure enough, the cover was partly off so she didn’t think the fix-it man had been to the house. However, just as she stood there – lo and behold – the “boom” blasted off and she could see for sure that the problem was within that big old box called a furn-ass.

Mom called the fix-it man and told him. He was just leaving town for the weekend so fix-it man #2 was supposed to show up but not until Saturday and it was only Thursday. We put the heat way down low because turning it off might make it so the thing wouldn’t come on again! That didn’t seem like much of a problem to me because I’d rather freeze to death than be blown to smithereens.

All through those two nights, especially on Friday night, the blasts were happening about every fifteen minutes. I shook so hard – even in the cold I was sweating – and my tongue hung out so far Mom didn’t know it was that long! She tried hard to comfort me but nothing, short of fleeing this horror, would have made things better.

So fix-it man #2 came over on Saturday morning and found the problem was with a little flame called a pilot light – maybe something like what flies an airplane – it was set too low so the whole innards of the big machine had to fill with gas before the dang thing would make heat.

He fixed it and we were happily warm and snug again.

However, by mid afternoon on Sunday, the house was cold again. Yep, the furn-ass had shut down.

It was another two days before fix-it man #2 could get back over here. The problem was that all of those explosions had loosened a wire up there which was short-changed, or something. So he took care of that – but not for long!

We had heat again for a day and for the third time fix-it man #2 had to come back. He got it working but said “You need a new furn-ass” but he needed permission from the insurance company – who then wanted another opinion from fix-it man #1 – before they said “OK.”

Well, when fix-it man #1 came over in a day or so the furn-ass was still working – and to this day – we have been enjoying the comforts of a nice warm house. Whew! My tail is wagging on wood at even having been so brave as to put that in writing!

Oh yes.

Last October Mom bought a new space heater. We used it in November and December but on Friday, January the 13th, it also quit working. We had it replaced but it remains in the unopened box it was shipped in.

Thank goodness for all that firewood we have – because it saved our lives! Most likely some folks didn’t appreciate smoke from our chimney, but when Mommy and I snuggled up in a blanket on the couch in front of that nice warm fire, neither of us much gave a fiddler’s flute what others were thinking. For the time being we were content in the only world we knew, and we were together.

Life is good.

Lovingly,

Harley McGuire

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