Winter's a-comin'.

At some point on the day after Thanksgiving, it struck me out of nowhere: it had been a long time since they’d come to refill my heating oil tank. A long time, and it was starting to get chilly, it being late November and all. I even went out to the tank, and peered into the fill hole. Couldn’t tell much, other than there was still enough oil to reflect my eye back at me, from way down there at the surface of the oil. I also remembered a year ago, when I did the same thing, and I was convinced that I was about out of oil, and had the oil company deliver that afternoon – and it turns out my tank was still two-thirds full, after all.

So I called the oil company. “Do you still have me on your automatic delivery plan?” Yes. “When is the next delivery schedule?” About a week and a half from now. “Really? Hmm. What do your records indicate was the last time you delivered oil to me?” Back in April. You know, it’s been such a mild autumn that we’ve had to delay our first delivery of the season by a couple of weeks.

Luckily, she then asked the correct next question: By our records, we have that you use oil only for heating. Is that correct, that you don’t use it to heat your water? “Uh, no. I use it to heat water that I use for both personal use and for heating the house.” Ah. In that case, we should put you on a more frequent delivery.

And true to her word, the oil truck showed up the next morning to fill my tank. Did a very thorough job of it, too, putting in slightly over 220 gallons. Especially impressive since I thought my tank held 210 gallons. “No, that’s a 270-gallon tank,” the delivery man said, “but you did have it mighty empty there.”