I’m jealous of all you west coast people, all hanging out in the sunshine like plump little oranges. Must be nice. News flash: I’m fucking freezing over here. It’s 19 degrees. Which is very cold. Do you know what that’s like? Imagine the coldest air conditioned room you’ve ever been in. Minus 40 degrees. That pineapple libation you’re sipping on would freeze directly to your hand.

My body craves sleep and anything with melted cheese. And warm socks. Warm socks with melted cheese. My office, in a trendy loft, was built originally to manufacture cardboard boxes, not logos and websites. The heat was never really rigged up to keep nerds in office chairs warm. My co-worker bought a Slanket. She looks like a wizard when she wears it which is awesome. What’s not as awesome is that we need Slankets to keep warm at work. Another coworker sits in what used to be an elevator shaft. She has to wear her coat all day to combat a mysterious “steady breeze.” I go in the bathroom and thaw my fingers under the warm water. It’s been like this for weeks, our office temperature has been a steady, cold 60 degrees.

After blowing fuses with space heaters, wearing ski socks and winter hats we were forced to deal with the maintenance crew. They are a dirty dozen, at least four of them are related, wherever they are from is tougher than New York.

After continual badgering, we got them to come in and do something, any-fucking-thing, to get some heat. My Slanket-clad co-worker typed me an IM as we all watched them bang on pipes and argue for three hours:

“It’s like watching monkeys hump doorknobs.”

They bolted a huge square, green fan-like contraption to the wall which could not have been manufactured after 1960. According to the monkeys it was STEAM powered. I was convinced that this would be another cruel winter joke. Like slipping on black ice and spilling hot coffee on yourself (which has never happened to me). The maintenance guys would rid themselves of a big shitty fan that’s been taking up space in the workshop and would we stay freezing cold. That would be our punishment for harassing them. And they would laugh and laugh and laugh.

Twenty minutes after they left it cranked to life; it was louder than an air compressor. A funky wind blew threw the place. The smell was like moist, rusty asbestos… but it was WARM! the office was finally warm. Tears of joy streamed down my face. I had a melted cheese sandwich. I could finally TYPE again. Thank god. The maintenance guys were not monkeys after all. They were gods. Doorknob humping gods.