I overheard Grandma and Grandpa conversing with one another the other day. They were discussing the concept of female HVAC professionals. My grandma was telling grandpa that she had seen a female HVAC technician at her friend’s house just a couple days earlier. Grandpa seemed very skeptical about the concept of there being a female HVAC technician, and he asked Grandma if she ever saw a female HVAC technician prior to this. She said that she hadn’t but she’d never seen Santa Claus before, although she was pretty sure there was a Santa Claus. Grandpa seemed quite shocked at this comment. He left the living room shaking his head. I heard Grandma grumbling to herself a little later on in the living room, so I walked in and asked if she was all right. She told me how she was quite sick of Grandpa being so stubborn about thinking that ladies couldn’t do anything more than cook and clean and marry old goats like himself. I started laughing at her comments, but then she gave me a hard look and told me that one day when I was a grown woman, I would understand exactly what she was talking about. I could not resist joking with her and I told her that when I was a grown woman, I had every intention of becoming an HVAC technician and not marrying old goats. I don’t think that I’ve ever heard Grandma laugh as hard as she did at that moment. She had tears streaming down her face when she came over and hugged me. She said she surely hoped that I would follow through and become a female HVAC technician so that she could put me right down in front of Grandpa and say that she found one!
