The Knob

So I am in Pennsylvania or Ohio and its really cold. I am on my way home from a wedding and I am participating in my first ever "white out." I am not driving so I'm not super concerned with the road conditions, frankly I am more concerned with sleeping and the fact that the bun warmer in my seat has been cranked up to 5 without my knowledge and its starting to get a little toasty. I awake to exclamations from my chauffeur like, "oh man I can't see a thing" and "I'm only going 8 miles an hour." I do not allow his claims to shake my diligence to grab some zzzzz's in the least.

It has become like 2 o'clock in the morning somehow. To my delight we finally decide to stop our wintery wonderland drive and get a hotel/motel for the evening. This is my first experience with the "drive-through" hotel clerk. We enter through the exit so I am forced to interact with this pale faced night owl through the plexi-glass. There are 2 other hotels across the street so I feel we have a little room to operate.

So I start with, "So uh, what you guys chargin these days?"
Night Owl, "What type of room sir?"
Me, "Oh, what do you say, 2 beds, queen, clean, and warm." Straight to the point, no games, no gimmicks, just give me the info.
Night Owl, "At this hour, $49.00."
Me, "We'll take it!" This is said with a grin of gaity and an automatic thrust of my hand to seal the deal.
Night Owl, "I can't shake your hand sir."

So it is freezing, literally. The thermostat in our vehicle says 3, no joke, 3. So when it's cold outside and there is no HEAT on in the room, its frigid. I walk in, I crank that bad boy up and get ready to hit the hay.

Let's say its ohh, 5 a.m. now. Besides from being 5 in the morning it is also like a suana. I wake in a daze, sweating, shirt sticking to my back, fumbling to the heater unit I search for the first knob I can find.

Must turn off heat. Must turn off heat. Will die if heat stays on.

I grab that thing and twist it like a man boob at the bottom of a rugby pile.

Fast forward to 8 a.m. Throat is scratchy, there is a chill in the air and up my spine. What is happening I think, where am I, am I in a tent on a side of a mountain in Utah on a January night, what has transpired? Shivering I come to my senses. No, surly not? How could I? Did I?

The few strides it takes to make it over to the unit feels like an eternity. The few feet could easily be mistaken for a few rugged miles of ice ridden terrain. To my horror I see its true. In my drunken state of REM I did it, I turned the knob, the precious knob that controls my emotion and sanity to the dark depths of AC. FOOOOL. NOOOOO!

So I turned on the heat and put on a hoodie.