Tempering the Metal

The week before Christmas, Santa came along and punched a hole in our wall, and plopped down a fireplace for us. Now, you have to totally understand, this was completely for me. Brent could care less. But he knew I've always wanted one, so he built a stand and framed everything in and allowed me to order one, and we actually got it in time for Christmas, which kind of made up for not having a tree or decorations this year.

I love the fireplace. But it had a little problem that ended up being bigger than we at first thought. About fifteen minutes after we'd turn it off and it started cooling down, suddenly there would be a single big bong! Loud enough to make me jump and the cat scatter.

After dealing with this on a continual basis, I finally called the fireplace company. No, I was told, that was not normal. They would send someone out to fix it. Another week went by, and no word, so I called them back. My representative said he'd been working on it all week, trying to find a solution. Turns out, he said, they've never had a problem like this before (of course) and the company seems to have ended up with an entire load of metal that was not tempered correctly. (Not sure what it means to temper it, but I suspect the salesman's temper may have been connected.)

Now they were having to go back and replace every single fireplace they had built with the bad metal. They were good to their word and Tuesday they came and took out our old new one and installed a new new one. And it doesn't go bong, or whomp, or pop or anything else. The metal just contracts slowly and correctly and though I still brace for it, the bang never comes.


There is a lesson here, I think. Something about how we need life's tempering influences so when the heat is on, we don't go whomp! And we can deal with it, and cool down properly. Here's to tempering our tempers!