Racing Stripes
The culprit
During the winter months, my family uses the fireplace located centrally to heat the living room, dining room, and kitchen. This is where we spend most of our time in the evening. The house is warm, but one still has to wear long pants and long-sleeved shirts to be completely comfortable. I grew up in a two-story house with one wood burning stove. I am accustomed to dressing warmly during the wintertime. I do not understand people who heat their houses to higher temperatures so that it feels like summertime in their homes. It just seems like a waste of money and resources to do so.
In the bedrooms, my husband has purchased electric oil-filled heaters. We plug this in about an hour before going to bed and shut the bedroom door. This allows the heater to take the chill out of the room before slipping between the sheets. The heaters are not set on a truly warm temperature; they are set to temperatures that keep the room from becoming cold.
The other day when there was a hard freeze outside it was colder than usual in our bedroom. My husband moved the heater closer to his side of the bed. It sat in the walkway between the bed and the restroom.
Later in the middle of the night, I awoke to a loud clattering and a few choice words. In the confusion and darkness, I could not tell what had happened, but I knew that Lane was no longer beside me.
“Lane, what’s going on?” I asked.
A voice from the floor moaned.
I crawled over to his side of the bed and looked down, but could not see anything in the darkness. “Are you okay?”
“Ummm, yeah, I think so. I tripped over the heater, but I’m fine,” he assured me.
Before rolling back over to sleep, I asked, “Is the heater alright?”
He did not respond. I heard him get up, go to the bathroom, and return to bed. He just laid there silently. And, I quickly went back to sleep.
The next morning he was moving a little slower than normal. Again I inquired about how he felt. In response he lifted up his arm to show me the stripes he now had on his arm. Then he showed me the stripes he had on his hip and outer left thigh. When he tripped, he fell on the heater, which in turn seared his skin where it touched the heater. Lane’s skin was seared in perfectly spaced stripes.
He would not let me do anything to his skin. It has been a week now and they are slowly healing. The burns actually look like they are going to leave scars. He swears that he is fine, but I wanted to let everyone know to beware the oil-filled heaters. They are a great source of heat; they also get hot to the touch. We have not stopped using ours, but do not put your heater in a walkway. Like Lane, you might forget where you put it and burn yourself, too.
Lane has a great sense of humor. He would have to to be married to me and have five children. We joke that he has racing stripes. On his race to the restroom, he earned his stripes the hard way. Stay warm this winter, but stay safe.
