I settled into my chair after dinner ostensibly to watch some TV but, really to doze off and on until bedtime. The cat jumped on my lap and, purring quietly, fell asleep at once. My partner, in his chair with his cat, was reading the paper. The dog, diplomatically, slept on the floor between us.
Such scenes of domestic tranquility do not last long in our house. A moment later I sat up, coughing horribly and the cat, snarling, was under the bed. I looked up at the ceiling and was stunned to see that the tiny little hairline crack above my chair that I had been ignoring for years had turned into a full fledged crevice that decided, at that moment, to collapse on my head.
Once I could breathe again I got the broom and dustpan and called Desmond. Desmond is a plasterer who worked with my father over 40 years ago. He’s retired now but he will do small jobs if you offer him cash. And lunch. I told him my story of woe and he laughed sympathetically. “Old houses,” he said. “Old houses,” I agreed.
The crack was duly sealed and repainted, but then Desmond noticed a crack in the dining room ceiling, and one in the kitchen. This happens with Desmond a lot: his eagle eye catches all the flaws that I go out of my way to ignore, but a couple of weeks later our ceiling was pristine.
“Until the next time,” my partner observed morosely. “Until the next time,” I agreed, adding, “I’d love to live in a house with floors that did not sag and ceilings that did not crack.”
And that put into motion a series of events that got us out of one old house and into another, marginally younger, house. “You know,” my partner said on moving day, “the new is really not much newer than the old house.” This was true. The old house was built in 1954; the new one was built in 1959.
“But the new house feels more modern,” I said. This was also true. When we bought the old house it had jalousie windows, a carport and, remarkably, it was not air-conditioned. The new house was built with awning windows, a garage and central air.
My partner put down the boxes he was carrying. “Yes, but it is certainly not a ‘new’ house,” he insisted. “Would you rather live in a truly new house in Weston?” I asked rhetorically, and the conversation ended abruptly. In our house the threat of living in the Everglades trumps everything else.
Several weeks later, we were settling down in front of the TV after dinner and my partner said, “Did you notice that the floor sags in the hallway?” I nodded. “Do you know that if we use the dryer and the microwave at the same time it pops a circuit breaker?” I asked.
There were other quirks: the oven had a single temperature: 450; the front door would not open on rainy days. The awning windows in the bedroom opened agreeably enough, but closing them was a 2-man project, requiring me to crank on the inside while my partner pushed from the outside. After 20 minutes of constant usage the air conditioner was so loud you could not hear yourself think. The dark spot in the garage that looked like black mold was… black mold.
“But the ceiling is pristine,” I pointed out smugly, looking at the patch of plaster over my head where I noticed a tiny crack that had not been there the day before.