Better living through electricity

I've never really understood the concept of an electric blanket. I don't mean that the physics is beyond my intellectual powers. I mean rather that it sounds like an electric dog, or electric strawberries, or an electric maple tree. The original performs a useful function as is. Why electrify it?

But here I am in the Northwest Corner in November, and once again the weather is turning cold. Once again, I shudder at the sound of my oil furnace clanking into another cycle, more even than I shudder at the cold itself. The last few winters, I've been saving oil by turning the thermostat down below 60 degrees at night, and gradually adding blankets to my bed as the outside temperature decreases.

I should explain that when the temperature is, say 58 degrees, in my dining room -- where the thermostat is located -- it's much colder upstairs in my bedroom under a poorly insulated roof. (Why don't I simply add insulation? Hush, you tell your stories and I'll tell mine.) And the colder it gets outside, the steeper the temperature gradient between upstairs and down.

By December, I'll have a wool blanket, a quilt, and an unzipped cotton sleeping bag on my bed, and a puffy down comforter on top of that. It's a heavy burden, resting on a skinny guy's chest, especially when you top it all off with two cats clinging to the pile of bedding for warmth. Turning over during the night, getting out of bed in the morning -- these require more than just will power -- they demand a certain amount of physical strength.

So I finally broke down, yesterday, and bought an electric blanket. I brought it home and removed it from its packaging, gazing somewhat askance at the lengths of electrical cord and the control box that come with the blanket. I've never heard of anyone being electrocuted in his sleep by an electric blanket, but various scenarios in which this would be a probable result passed through my mind -- my nervousness heightened by not really quite understanding the blanket's internal wiring. Obviously, resistance wiring somehow threads itself around the innards of the blanket. All I can think of is the sight of my toaster when it's toasting. Glowing red hot wires, wires from which, after too much probing, one can receive a nasty shock. Surely, the wire inside the blanket is insulated? But can't the insulation melt from the heat?

Toast, I envision myself. Burnt toast, surrounded by the shimmering aura of an electric field.

My saving grace is that I usually know when I'm being silly. I shake my forebodings aside, place the blanket on the bed, and connect the wire to the connector at the foot of the blanket. Now I have only to plug in the blanket.

I plug it in. The LED indicator comes on, and then goes off. I do it again. Same result. I need to explain. Sometime before I moved into my circa 1922 house, a former owner rewired it. But he only rewired the lower floor. The upstairs has odd sockets from olden days, sockets that make only loose connections with plugs. The socket near my bed is the worst. But, by bending the prongs of the plug experimentally in several directions, I finally get the connection to hold. Barely.

A few hours later, joined by my usual feline entourage, I get ready for bed. Electric blanket plugged in? Check. LED on? Check. Heat set at appropriate level? Check. I climb into bed. Hey! This isn't like sitting inside a toaster! I'm just lying in a comfortably warm bed. And the blanket is light!

I like this. Do other people know about electric blankets, or am I once again avant garde, ahead of the curve? I settle down to do a little reading in bed before calling it a night. But, hark! The cats are alert and suspicious. This wire, plugged into the wall, is SOMETHING NEW! The investigation begins. They knock the loosely inserted plug loose. I admonish them, and carefully reconnect. Oh, "Master" is playing a game! Their excitement seems to reach a frenzy, and they are once again tapping the plug with their paws before I'm even settled back into bed. It's loose, again. It's painstakingly reconnected. Cats are admonished. I return to bed. [Go to beginning and repeat above scenario.]

Has anyone ever accomplished anything by admonishing a cat?

Finally, their feline curiosity is exhausted. While their master's behavior is mildly amusing, the plug itself proves to be pretty inert and non-combative. They'd rather go to a corner and stare at a spot on the wall for an hour or two. I go to sleep. I sleep well. I wake up in the morning. The plug is undisturbed; the LED indicator is still lit; the blanket is still light in weight and normally comfortable in warmth; the cats are lying contentedly atop the warm blanket without feeling the need to lie on top of me.

I am alive. I was neither electrocuted nor toasted black during the night.

Once more I sally forth into the world of modern living. Smug with self-satisfaction, I suspect I can adapt to this novel "electric blanket" concept.