Growing up, I was never able to get in on the latest technology trends due to my mother’s distrust in electronics, then my dad did all the driving for the family because she refused to touch a driving wheel, she hated computers, and she only kept a basic landline phone in the house in order to take and send calls.
When my friend and I finally got a t.v.
it was only for the basic news channels and nothing more, i regularly thought this was so unfair due to how my friends had cable t.v., internet, and cellphones, but there was no talking my Dad into allowing them and my dad simply went along with it, but as she put it, it wasn’t a fight my friend and I could win, however, these mornings I realize there was something she did make an exception for – my mother regularly doted on our HVAC system! She was the only one allowed the adjust the control machine and I can’t remember a time when she wasn’t running either the heating or cooling in the house. We couldn’t get a dishwasher since she said it would make us lazy and it took a lot of convincing to get a microwave into the house, but the air conditioner and boiler were things she refused to live without. I easily know she would have rathered given up the refrigerator to take away the food’s cooling than to deliver up her own temperature control. I mentioned this to my dad recently and she laughed, cheerful that someone else had noticed her HVAC obsession. If either of us try to mention it to her, though, she does everything she can to avoid the topic, but despite the unfairness, I’m cheerful she allowed the HVAC system in the house; Growing up without it wouldn’t have been pleasant.