How to blow through $700 of furnace oil in a week

It wasn't that we were out of wood.

Well, not quite anyway.

Although I must admit I let the side down this year with my rather paltry stash of firewood.

But hard into that Christmas ice storm, I called the oil folks for a $700 top-up just in case.

Just in case we ran out of wood, obviously.

But once you have the top-up, it's easy to get lazy. Just as I was getting lazy the blizzard of '14 hits.

Minus 35 and six inches of snow falling every hour with the winds blowing to gale force and beyond.

We were storm-stayed for the better part of a week.

Positively apocalyptic.

So there's only one thing to do. Eat, drink, be merry, and crank the furnace to 80 degrees!

When that decision was made, the blizzard of '14 was only hours old. Little did I realize that the apocalyptic snow and the apocalyptic wind would not abate for days.

When it's that windy and snowy and wild and cold and the thermostat is cranked to 80, and it's -35 outside, that old furnace never even shuts down!

That's how you blow through $700 in furnace oil in a week.