Well, leaving the heat off at home has now become a little game here at the old Gazette.

I have mentioned before that I try to keep the oil-fueled water boiler in my basement on summer vacation as long as possible. It was about 48 degrees in my cryogenic house this morning and the forecast calls for several more weeks of cool air. Two colleagues, Judy Patrick and Sara Foss, are now in the ice capades. Like me, they have not turned up the thermostat this autumn and are enjoying free air-conditioning as November approaches. And the race is on — who will finish last — the last to heat up hearth and home?

Conservation is a fiscally responsible policy this year. Prices for heating oil are around $3.60 a gallon right now, and that’s on the inexpensive side. Prices were a lot higher this summer. Ms. Patrick and I are both in thrall to Big Oil.

Sooner or later, we’ll all have to turn up the heat. I’d hate for my water pipes in the basement to get too frosty, and vent displeasure by cracking wide open, flooding boxes of old newspapers, comic books and Playboy magazines. Water can’t hurt my golf clubs ... it might help them.

But for now, every day without heat is a few more dollars in our pockets. I’ve been wearing long-sleeved, thermal T-shirts and sweaters around the house. I’m lighting jar candles, but 5 or 6 flames are not turning my place into a sauna. The only sauna is the bathroom; after hot showers — water temperature is not on the table here — heat meets cold air and fills the place with steam.

A few nights ago, I grabbed a sleeping bag — out of work for years — from the closet and rolled it over the six blankets already on top of my bed. And during a typing session from home last night, I drafted a wool cap for service and kept some heat bottled up — I’ve read that body heat drifts away through the head. Ms. Patrick says her husband, Mr. Patrick, has been snoozing with a hooded sweatshirt. Hood operating, of course.

So we both look like goofballs.

I’m not sure what is allowed in the competition. Ms. Foss plans to get a space heater, and I would say that should be permitted to warm up some chambers during evening hours. I have a fireplace, and believe that should be allowed on weekends. It’s more for ambience than heat anyway, but the controlled burns do throw a few additional degrees into the living room. The Patricks have a wood stove and about 10,000 logs.

I was thinking about Halloween for the 2008 heat premiere, but maybe I should show solidarity and keep chattering and chuckling in the face of morning frost. Always wanted to get one of those old-fashioned signs with a smiling penguin pointing to a stack of words that read, “Come on in! It’s COOL inside,” with the “Cool” shown in snow-frosted, icicle-dripping letters. This might be the year.

Nobody has said anything about prizes. Does the winner get a bottle of brandy? A bottle of Nyquil?

Maybe a hot water bottle?