It was a disaster. But an exciting one!

I drove home. Normally this is an eight-hour drive, but I have mono [yes, still], so I stopped twice to nap.

Rest stops are not very comfortable places to sleep.

In the last our of the drive, I was tired enough that I cut someone off. [Bump!] I don’t recommend it.

My family is still in England, thousands of miles away, so there was no food in the house.

The router had gotten confused, so there was no Internet connection. [Hello? World?]

Oh, but best of all…the heat wasn’t working. [Come on, get warmer than fifty-five…]

I called a family friend…[Can you email my parents to let them know I’m not dead, and to call me?]

…scavenged for blankets, and slept on the floor in the warmest room in the house.

[This is a furnace.]

The next day, with parental guidance via phone, I went to investigate the furnace. The pilot light was out, and nothing could convince it to be lit again. (I did have hot water, so I could take showers.)

I warmed up the house a little bit by cooking. [Macaroni!] But it never got over 65 (Fahrenheit).

We have this electric kettle that automatically boils water. After we got the Internet connection back up, I filled the kettle, boiled the water, and spent most of the rest of the break huddled around it in a little makeshift nest of blankets. With my computer, of course. Three days later… [Witch Hunter Robin]

…I got photos of the furnace and sent them across the pond. The verdict: This little screw needed to be like this

I turned it, and tried to light the pilot again. [Score!]

So I got to spend one warm night before the flight back to college. (After all that, it’s a good thing I wasn’t driving.)