Everything was ready, however the furniture had been pushed aside to make room for our sleeping bags, the chips and soda were in the fridge, and the films had been ordered.
I was having a sleepover at my apartment with three of my best friends.
The sizable event had been on our calendars for weeks and the excitement was building, then but Murphy’s Law, it seemed, had prevailed – whatever could go wrong – did! The boiler had quit with no warning whatsoever. I panicked, of course… Who could come this late on a Wednesday afternoon to repair it? I found a number to call for an Heating and Air Conditioning worker and, thankfully, she was able to come within the hour. The concern was – she came at quite a cost. But what option did I have? Once the worker arrived, she went to the basement and started assessing the cause. I wanted to rest next to him and tell him to hurry, however I forced myself to stay out of her way. It didn’t take long for him detect what was causing the boiler to quit! She said that since I had an induced draft boiler, an intermittent pilot ignites the burner gas with a high voltage spark only when the control equipment calls for heat. The intermittent pilot flame goes out after the heating cycle and remains off until the next time the control equipment calls for heat. What had happened was that the ignitor had cracked and needed to be replaced. I was so cheerful that it was just a matter of replacing a part, which – thankfully, she had in her truck. In no time, the boiler was running again and the apartment slowly started warming up – just in time for the sleepover.