We live in a two-story house with separate heating units for upstairs and down. About ten days ago the heat went out downstairs, but the temperature outside hovered around sixty degrees, so we figured "No sweat." We called the repair folks and set up a non-urgent appointment for the following Monday.

Yet on Sunday afternoon temps in Dallas plummeted and kept dropping overnight. An ice storm early Monday kept most folks in--including repair people. Finally, around nightfall, the service guy arrived and climbed into the attic for a look. After descending the ladder, he told us we needed a new part. We could overnight it for the cost of a space-shuttle launch or we could wait for UPS ground. We compromised and opted for two-day delivery.

Temperatures stayed below freezing. On Wednesday Mesquite and Dallas cancelled school thanks to treacherous road conditions. The meat I set out to thaw didn't. I found my husband watching TV in a parka and gloves. And for dinner three nights running we turned on the gas fireplace (all our wood was wet) and huddled in front of it to slurp our steaming soup. (Soup makes much more steam in a cold room.) The contents of our coat closet, complete with jackets, scarves, and hats, migrated to the top of the stairs where we could don them before descending into Antartica.

I wrote to a friend saying, "I know my dad lived in a tent in the Yukon for months in sub-zero temps before writing in his journal, 'It has ceased being funny and is just plain cold.' It took me only three days to reach that point. I confess. I'm a wimp." No Jack London here.

On Thursday the part arrived and the repair guy returned at dinnertime to install it. By nine p.m. our now-sixty-degree living room felt warm enough to do the Limbo. The cremated Sam McGee woulda felt right at home.

We watched "Flicka" last night with its Wyoming scenery that made us gasp. The Tetons are our favorite place on the planet. Still, at the end where they panned out with a shot of snow-covered peaks at sunrise, we sat unmoved. The scenery had the appeal of an infomercial for purgatory. We looked at each other and shook our heads. "Not a chance. Nice place to visit; wouldn't want to live there. Too dern cold."