My parents are super particular about their home’s HVAC temperature settings.
When I was still residing under their roof, they had extremely strict instructions about who could and couldn’t touch the control unit settings. Basically, my parents and grandparents were the only people who had access to the home’s sacred HVAC settings. I tried decreasing the temperature one evening when my parents went to bed and I thought I would get away with it, but my parents discovered the change as soon as they woke up and the lake house was cold as ice. They grilled my sister and I to find out who changed the temperature and I eventually caved and told them that it was me. I was grounded for two weeks, which kept myself and others from ever touching the control unit settings again. Now that I’m a grown adult, I still don’t touch their control unit settings. However, last weekend while I was visiting my parents, I accidentally left the back door open for hours and nobody noticed. When I finally realized my mistake, I panicked just thinking about all the heat that had escaped through the door. For weeks I was distraught about the heat loss and how much energy my parent’s oil furnace had burned. I was convinced that if my parents noticed a higher utility bill, then they’d discover what I had done and reprimand me for it. I felt so stupid becuase I was fearful over accidently leaving the door open and my parent’s heat bill being higher. Of course they never said anything to me or anyone because they would have no way of knowing.