If you give a man a ladder...

In a perfect world, a drop ceiling might look like this.

The living room’s drop ceiling tiles were bulging downward. They’d been bulging downward for months, maybe years. We had repeatedly noticed this and then ignored it. As in, “I wonder why that area of the ceiling sags.…I wonder what’s on Netflix.”

But today, because my husband had brought a ladder into the house for another project, he decided to solve the mystery of the bulging ceiling tiles.

This is not my ceiling. But similar.

He removed a tile and was rewarded with a shower of crumbling plaster. The shower turned into a torrent that eventually filled three big black trash bags with heavy rubble. I helped a bit loading the first bag, until I reminded my husband that my right hand is not supposed to hold anything heavier than a coffee cup, due to my healing broken elbow. I judiciously jumped out of the way before the worst crashed down, covering him, our TV and accessories, and the carpet.

 My husband’s further reward was vacuuming up all the dirt himself, again because of my healing broken elbow. I’m sure I would have been put on cleanup detail otherwise. The carpet has not been cleaned this thoroughly since before I broke the elbow. Who am I kidding? It hasn’t been this clean since the start of the 2017 – 2018 school year.

This is not my husband. 

Our old house weathered Central Pennsylvania's famous 1972 flood. The previous owners, like many flood victims, covered damage with new carpeting on the floor, wood paneling on the walls, and a drop ceiling tile system. The old plaster remained above it. We bought the house in 2000. We even replaced the old ceiling tiles once, but we also left the old plaster in place.

Today I learned what happens when I sweep things under the rug. Wrong metaphor, but the incident reminds me of issues I ignore or hide, hoping they will magically resolve themselves. Especially relationship issues. (Isn’t everything a relationship issue? Relationships between people or groups of people or nations?)

Will I do any better after today’s lesson? I don’t know.