My parents are super particular about their HVAC settings.
- When I was still living under their roof, they had very strict guidelines about who could and couldn’t touch the thermostat settings.
Basically, my parents and grandparents were the only people who had access to the HVAC settings. I tried changing the temperature one evening when my parents went to bed and I thought I would get away with it, but my parents discovered the change as soon as they woke up and the house was freezing cold. They grilled my sister and I to find out who changed the temperature and I eventually caved and told them that it was me. I was grounded for two weeks, which kept me from ever touching the thermostat settings again. Now that I’m a grown adult, I still don’t touch their thermostat settings. However, last weekend while I was visiting my parents, I accidentally left the back door open for hours and nobody noticed. When I finally realized my mistake, I panicked just thinking about all the heat that had escaped through the door. For weeks I worried about the heat loss and how much energy my parent’s furnace probably burned. I was convinced that if my parents noticed a higher utility bill, then they’d discover what I had done and reprimand me for it. I felt so stupid becuase I was fearful over accidently leaving the door open and my parent’s heat bill being higher. Of course they never said anything to me because they would have no way of knowing.