And in the year 2001, God looked around the place and said, “Let there be heat.”

And the man asked God how could it be possible with no cellar, no tank, no boiler, and God told the man to diggeth up from ledge a foundation and then buildeth a room so there could be heat.

And the woman helpeth mightily, and God said it was good.

And the months passed and the man worked and toiled, and God told the man he was pleased because the woman was getting up in years and was so deserveth of being warm.

And more months begat months, and it was the year 2002. An ark of a mechanical room was finished, and God told the man to hireth professionals so there could be heat. But the man balked, saying he could be saveth from the money-changers by plumbing the place himself.

And God – and the woman – were angry and instructed the man to lift not the soldering iron to any copper pipe in the crawl space under the place, nor connect electrical wires from thermostats to circulators while knowing not what he doeth.

And the man obeyed, and he payeth the bill instead. Then he waited for the oilman to cometh, and the tank was filled and the boiler was fired. By a miracle, the waters were parted … and ran hot through baseboard units all

around the place.

And God said it was good, and he looked down at the woman and told her to go and burneth wood no more. And she confessed that those were never her intentions, and thus she vowed never to lug another log.

Then God told the animals inside the place to not lieth beside the cold wood stove any longer, lest they look stupid like the asses in the fables.

But the man was perplexed and asked how could it be to come in from the single-digit temperature outside and not backeth-up to the stove. And the devil in the man forced a further argument about the need for the wood stove to survive the frequency of power outages.

And God shook his head and said to the man, “Thou shalt face many temptations but hitherto shalt combat them with a generator … and then there will always be heat.”

And the woman sighed and wondered aloud why there never had been central heat in the place. And God told her not to look backwards or she would be turned into salt-sand.

And God said for her children to go forth and multiply and to return home where there would be no wood heat and they would not have to openeth windows upstairs.

And God snucketh away from the woman and asked the man why indeed had it taken 25 years for there to be heat in the place. And the man admitted he had pondered the same question in his heart.