The Sunny Heater (SH-1101GR) is a cohabitant of my office. Actually, I am merely a tenant in his 4th floor domain. He owns my office like any landlord. In his case, he would more appropriately be considered a renegade turf combatant, willing to kill, maim or poison for respect. I refer to the Sunny Heater as a 'he' because only a man could be so sadistic, cruel, and dangerous. I prefer not to taint the beautiful image of women and reserve the gender qualities of man for this sonofabitch that tried to kill me for good this morning.

Normally when I feel cold I tough it out in my office and pray that my body heat will overcome the generous amount of cold airspace in the room. I have taken to this practice more often than not because of the Sunny Heater. You see, when I turn him on, he likes to idle, click, then spit gas for a lengthy period of time. I have to open my window and door to create a wind-tunnel in order to send the visible miasma of flammable gas outside the window. This tactic has never been sound, but it allows me enough oxygen to breathe for the rest of the morning. I also can never leave the Sunny Heater on for more than an hour or else he attempts the 'slow poison death' method on me. Many other foreign teachers claim their space heater gives them headaches, foolishness. You must run people, run.

I arrived this morning and went about my rituals as usual. I turned on my computer, plugged in the water-maker, and changed into my slippers. I needed to add some water to the electric boiler, so I grabbed a water bottle and headed for the door. But I decided it was too cold this morning and I opened the window, clicked the switch on my nemesis and headed out into the hall. I returned from the water cooler to find the Sunny Heater spewing out gas and refusing to ignite. The room smelled terrible, and I figured that today was his retirement, so I went to go turn him off. I reached down to stop the ignition clicking when BOOM! The area surrounding that evil machine burst into a fireball. I checked my eyebrows, counted my toes, and watched as the fireball slowly simmered into the flame that "heats" this office on occasion.

I tamed the beast of a machine eventually and have retired him to the corner for good. I will suffer the pain of harsh winters to save myself from this murderous mechanized malefactor. No matter how safe I find Korea to be, it always seems that the most dangerous place lies within these walls of academic pursuit.

I hate you Sunny Heater. I hate you.