What is it outside?

A little over twenty five years ago, we moved into this house. We were so happy to finally have our own place, after renting for ten years. My parents came out to see the house. My mother went off garage sale-ing with Kathy. My father and I hit the hardware store. He insisted on buying one of those thermometers that tells you the temperature both outside and inside, with two mercury filled glass tubes and a thingie on a wire that you stick outside the window. I installed it by the window in the kitchen where everyone could see it.

Year after year, season after season, we would come down in the morning and peek at it to see what was happening outside. It was especially fun when the temperature slipped below zero and we knew it before we turned on the TV. Maybe it was a scorcher and we’d root for the temperature to go even higher. At least, in the microclimate in our driveway, we knew everything we needed to know.

It was part of our morning ritual. Snap on the light, check the thermometer and go on from there. Knowing that sometimes school would close if it was too cold, the kids would check it as well, willing the mercury to fall just a smidge more.

Twenty-five years. The other day I came downstairs and it read “100”. I thought hmmm, something’s wrong. I wonder what happened. Later I found the temperature probe lying in the driveway. Oh. That’s what happened.

I had to replace it, of course. What good is a thermometer that’s only going to be right a few times a year?

Have you ever looked for such a thing in the store? Nowadays they are selling wireless ones with clocks and humidity sensors that take batteries. Why does every electronic doo-hickey have to have a clock on it? Microwaves, stoves, phones—really, how often we need to see the time? All I want is a thermometer, not a weather station that NASA would envy. Besides, I never had to put batteries in my old thermometer. It just plain worked, all by itself.

After checking three brick and mortar old fashioned actual stores that you drive to, I couldn’t find anything resembling my old precision instrument. The only ones that measured both indoor and outdoor temperatures were those super dupe electronic whiz bang LCD-laden sterile boxes. They are even grey, just as drab as can be. At least my original had something bright red to look at.

So, the end of this rant is the purchase of something resembling Old Faithful, made by the same company, found on the Internet at acmehardware.com (hey—it was good enough for Wile E. Coyote). Price-- $7.95. Shipping- $7.44. Finding an old fashioned thermometer that will do a simple job in a simple way: priceless.