Better living through technology...

As you know... because I complain about it all the time... I am peri-menopausal, which is really just a nice way of saying old, fat, bitchy, and extremely temperature sensitive. Now most days this isn't a huge issue. I dress in layers to deal with the temperature problem. Layers do nothing good for the fat, old or bitchy problems but there's only so much you can do and comfort has to come first. So, knowing this about me, you will understand why it's so important to have a programmable thermostat in my house.

The programmable thermostat performs two vital functions, keeping the electricity bill down, and keeping my family passably warm despite my hormonal imbalances. At night the temperature drops to 58 degrees making it possible for me to sleep comfortably with a light blanket. Everyone else is wearing socks, hats, mittens and hiding under down comforters but we all sleep reasonably well. However, when morning comes, and the eskimos have to emerge from their pile of furs, a minor rebellion occurs. Shaking in their long underwear they run to the the thermostat and stab the buttons with their brittle blue fingers. Before you know it the temp rises to a balmy 72 degrees and I'm resisting the urge to strip down to my bra and panties.

In an effort to stop the madness I returned to my trusty programmable thermostat and reprogrammed it. Yes, I gave in. I told it to turn the heater on and warm the house to 68 degrees half an hour before everyone wakes up. Here's where the better living through technology part comes in.. you see, my heretofore dependable and much loved thermostat has a hidden feature called Adaptive Intelligent Recovery. It's a nice feature that insures your house will be 68 degrees at 6am by turning the heater on at 4:30! The reasoning behind this delightful feature is that people prefer to warm up gradually. There is no override, no way to ensure it doesn't come on before a certain time because the program is adaptive. It decides what it wants to do and then does it without consulting me. Apparently it is incapable of adapting to the fact that I wake up the instant the heater comes on. The owners manual assures me that the thermostat will learn to turn itself on later as soon as it gathers enough data to know how long it really takes to warm the house. This shouldn't take much more than two weeks... Obviously this technology was designed by a man.