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A Little Domestic Dispute
by Jack Swenson

My wife has night sweats. I'm a string bean and always cold. We have an undeclared war over the thermostat setting in our house. If she gets up first, she sets the temperature at 68 degrees; when I get up, I wait until she leaves for work and bump it up to 70. This works fine, except on days when we are both home, which are Wednesday, Saturday, and Sunday. Then we change the setting every time we walk down the hall. Sometimes I forget. When I notice that my toes are beginning to freeze, I turn on the heat.

Recently my wife went on the offensive and began to turn the regulator way down, to 62 or even 60 degrees. I didn't say anything; I just punched it up to 70 degrees on the key pad. I thought about putting the device at 75, but decided against it. Neither us have ever spoken about this issue. Our war is undeclared, and there have been no peace talks, no negotiations. By now I just want to see what happens. I'll be darned if I will be the first to make a peace offering or even raise the issue. I'm not sure I can hold out, however. My wife is not a talker; I am. I am afraid that the silence is going to drive me crazy.