Nirvana

For Christmas, my parents gave Margaret and me a heated matress pad. Oh my gosh, I had no idea we would love such a simple thing. A month or so ago, I got Margaret an electric blanket, so we'd already been introduced to the wonders of electric warmth (in fact we took that blanket to that hot springs resort, where it was much appreciated in the cold cabin). Anyway, when we opened our present, we were both looking forward to using it that very night. Of course, that evening was the night that the power went out from the wind storm that hit the Northwest, so we were denied (in fact we had to pack our luggage by FLASHLIGHT!). When we got back from Utah, we plugged it in and quickly learned that the "5" setting is fine to warm up the bed before you get into it, but the "3" setting is the maximum you want to sleep with. I woke up the first night sweating so much I was surprised that I hadn't shorted out the pad. Now we're in a happy medium and sleeping quite well... thanks to the wonders of electricity!

Fortunately we also learned a lesson from my parents' experience. When they first got theirs, my mom got cold so she turned up her control and my dad got warm so he turned his control down. Still cold, my mom turned up her control even more, and getting warmer, my dad turned his control down even more. When they woke up, they were both complaining about it before they realized that they had switched their controls.