The older I get, the harder it is to buy gifts for important people in my life. When we were younger, everything seemed novel and we were so poor that it was incredibly easy to pick something up and wow the recipient. Then, we got full-time jobs and started buying our own gadgets. Ten years down the line, most of my friends have acquired their own essential items and my family members have become so jaded with decades of making their own purchases. I never know what to get anybody when the holidays roll around. Recently, I was confronted with this problem when my rich uncle was celebrating his 70th birthday. I wanted to impress him with my gift and I knew that he was always complaining about the energy bill at his house. He likes to talk about the good old days when running a furnace and it cost you an arm and a leg and he could use his heating device all winter without worrying about going broke. He also complained wholeheartedly about his terrible air quality and the inefficiency of his forced air furnace. That’s when I decided, I could get him a gift he would never forget. My sister lured him out of the house and I called out an HVAC specialist. When the heating and cooling technician arrived we started talking about radiant heated floors. He took some measurements for my uncle’s condo and we got his HVAC work truck out of the driveway before my uncle returned. A few weeks later, We snuck back in and installed a full house of radiant heated flooring for him. Now, my uncle has energy efficient heating and improved air quality at home. I know for a fact he never got radiant heated floors for a gift before.
