Oh no, thermastat doesnt work!

Crap, well my ball python is here, and everything is fine but today the thermastat craped out. Great!
So what do i do? Right now ive just been keeping an eye on the temp (i have an ambient, probe, and humidity digi reader)
And unplugging the mat when it gets to a temp im not ok with.
So ive sent it in the mail, went to walmart, and they dont have rheostats, they have ones that plug directly into light bulb, but i dont need that, and they have one that replaces the whole socket...ugh what do i do? The new them wont be here for probobly a week :(
Oh and my first new bp has arrived

What is your substrate? When something similar happened to me, I adjusted the thickness of the substrate over the hot spot. I was using shredded aspen at the time and it worked well because it interlocked so the snake wouldn't burrow in to it.

Newspaper. If i put a nice plush towel down, and allowed a burrow spot in his hideaway, would that help? Ugh im freaking out :(

Ima do the towel thing. Luckily he loves his hideaway, and the hideaway has some mat and non mat spaces, so im hoping that will help disperse heat, but the mat was helping my ambients stay up and there at 78... ima crank the heat up!

Ok so he can now burrow in his hideaway, but there is still space between him and the tub bottom thats protected by a shirt, and wraped around the hideaway so he cant get on the actual plastic bottom. I also put the probe on the inside on the tank, curious to see the heat exchange difference, right now its stuck at 88, but ambient is 77 :(

The gu told me to feed him, and gave me the food, but i dont wana feed him if he will be stressed...

Hmm well the probe on the inside bottom is reading 100, so i unplugged the mat cause i gota go to work (i work 3 hour shifts spread throughout the day so i can pop in for 3 or 4 hours every so often and plug and watch i guess...
Man this stinks.
The only dimmers i saw were either whole outlet setups, poopy!