After what I considered to be a harrowing experience with a broken furnace in the middle of a major snowstorm, I expected more sympathy from Mr. Troutbend, who is basking in the Las Vegas sun, staying at hotels and coming home every so often to feed the cat and pick up his bowling equipment.

I sent him a series of emails that started with:

"Dear Honey, It is 2 am and the pilot light won't stay lit. Snow is falling at the rate of an inch an hour. I have a replacement thermocouple, but have no idea how to install it. I've been working on it since midnight. I can't figure out how those pipe things where the flames come out pull out of there so I can get to the pilot light and thermocouple. There seems to be a steel bar holding them in, held in there with hexagonal bolts that I can't budge, and they don't appear to meant for removal. Maybe the whole outer shell comes off; it is held with sheet metal screws, but I can't get one of them out, so all I can do is pry off a corner and peek in there, but it doesn't look like that is the way to go. I turned the electricity to the boiler off at the breaker box so the hot water pump wouldn't run all night, and I think that's all I can do before I start calling around at 8 am to try to get a plumber to come here in a snowstorm. I wish we had started the tractor so I could plow the driveway, but of course we put it off again this year like we did last year, so all I can do is drive the truck up and down the driveway to mash the snow down."

The next day I sent him updates including pictures of the snow and how I finally got a plumber to agree to come, but they said if he got to our driveway and didn't like the looks of it, he was going to turn around and go home and still charge us $49 so I was going to wait in the truck at the top of the drive so he could leave his car up there and ride back and forth with me.

But then he didn't even try to show up because he got stuck in his own driveway.

As you all know, when I finally figured it out and got the part replaced, I was feeling like I'd been dragged through a knot hole.

I expected Mr. Troutbend to write something along these lines:

"Dear Honey, I am so sorry for all your troubles with the furnace, and you are very brave to get through that and figure out what to do. We will have to figure out what we can do to prevent this sort of situation in the future, because you are correct, it always seems to happen at the worst possible time. Maybe I will start replacing the thermocouple every summer; they don't cost much, and it is the least I can do for you peace of mind."

He finally responded to my emails this morning:

"That's quite a snow you got. One of the headlines on the msn home page is "Colorado slammed by snow". Sorry you had to deal with the bad weather and the furnace - good job getting that part replaced. Thanks for the pictures, but they just about gave me an anxiety attack thinking about driving in that stuff. I'm glad you have the 4WD there."

It's nice enough, but not quite the depth of emotion and compassion I was looking for. I didn't expect him to jump in the car and drive out here to help me, but he could have said he was sorry he couldn't.

Well, never fear, next time we are together I'll tell him how I feel about it and we'll have a good laugh.