Mood Swings:
The squeaky board
By
Wendy Jean Lee
My home is my castle. This is an American concept. It used to apply to men only, but that was in the past, during the dark days of sexism, before women had assumed their proper place as Lords of the Castle, in control, as they should be, of everything that goes on there and in all other venues of family life. Though my husband does consult with me on even the most minute detail before taking any action that concerns our house, and although most of the time this works out just fine, there are also times, however, when we reach an impasse.
One such time was right after we had just moved into our brand new villa in 6th October City. I noted with alarm a suspiciously squeaky board in the hallway upstairs. My husband, however, did not feel fixing that board should be our top priority. I explained patiently to him (I am a patient woman) that the squeaky board was a danger, that it obviously contained dampness that would spread to other boards, that a squeaky board is a threat not only to its neighbouring boards but to the security of the whole house, and that, therefore, the board had to be removed immediately.
My husband wanted at least to have the board inspected first to verify that it was, in fact, damp. I grudgingly agreed, though I saw no need for it -- I was ready to tear up the entire floor right away and replace it with boards of my own choosing. However, I never take action unilaterally. After a great deal of arm-twisting, my husband acquiesced, though not without words of protest.
"Why are you so worried about that particular squeaky board?" he asked, "when there are boards elsewhere in the house that are not just squeaky, but black with rot? And why are you worried about boards at all, when we have a mouse problem? We don't need an inspection to tell us that; there are droppings everywhere."
I called an engineer to inspect the board. He, as I expected, offered a wide range of excuses: maybe water was seeping out from the bathrooms; maybe the maid was dousing the floor with water when she cleaned. Though I am a patient woman, I was running out of patience. The inspection was going nowhere, the engineer could find no evidence of dampness under the board, yet he said he needed more time. I kept pushing him to find evidence of the dampness that was causing the squeak; he kept insisting he could find none. "Maybe," he said in complete exasperation, "it is your shoe that is squeaking, not the board."
Meanwhile, my husband was still standing on the sidelines mumbling about mice. I tried my best to ignore him. I was getting very tired of all the inaction, all the discussion, all the lack of evidence of dampness under the board and, especially, my husband's constant complaining about mice. I am a patient woman, but inspections or no inspections I felt it was high time to tear up the entire floor, smash it to smithereens, do whatever it would take to get rid of that squeaky board. (Somehow it seems that when it comes to our house I always get stuck with doing the dirty jobs, the jobs that no one else wants to do, solving problems not of my own making in order to ensure the peace of the house as a whole.)
Anyway, I am now trying the carrot and stick approach: I cook my husband's favorite meals and buy him high-tech electronic gadgets while simultaneously amassing large contingents of floor-wrecking tools in the vicinity of the squeaky board to show the seriousness of my intent.
I am a fair person and I am trying my best to find a way to pry loose the squeaky board and replace it with one I like better without tearing up the entire floor. After all, my home is my castle, I am its lord and should be in control of all the boards and everything that goes on here.
For the time being my husband is still refusing to go along, saying he cannot live with double standards in his house and that if I want to get rid of that one squeaky board, I ought to get rid of all the squeaky boards in all parts of the house; and, most of all, that I should deal with the mouse problem, since where there are mouse droppings there are always mice and no inspections are needed to confirm their presence.
In fact, my husband has warned me that if I don't change my position, my house could become a very unsafe place for me. And though it is possible that, in the interests of a more peaceful house, I should listen to my husband, I am not inclined to listen. To me his words sound like just another squeaky shoe.
This week's contributor is an American expatriate residing in Cairo.
