INK ARIA

HOW CREATIVE HOME MAINTENANCE IMPROVED MY LIFE

Renee Gehman

Idid something last week that may indicate obsessive-compulsive tendencies, but go ahead and label me, stereotype me, spread rumors about my "condition"—I won’t care a whit. Because I have solved the problem of The Creaky Bathroom Floor, and the quality of my life has been instantaneously improved.

One’s own bathroom is not a place one can avoid; I will risk making the assumption that this is common knowledge and leave it at that. In recent months though, the floor of my bathroom has assumed an undesirable trait in the form of a loud, high-pitched creak. What was once a location of pleasant neutrality has become for me a destination of such dread that I have found myself avoiding it whenever possible.

Even so, for convenience’s sake I have daily resigned myself to endure the offensiveness of the Creaky Bathroom Floor. I have tried to acknowledge the bright side, which is that I have tended to get ready more efficiently since the coming of the Creak. But I have also been keenly aware of having consistently departed the bathroom in a bad mood.

Everything came to a head during a spontaneous nighttime bathroom-cleaning last week. As I moved back and forth along the floor, wiping the counter with Windex, the Creak reached new extremes of unbearableness. With each shift of weight the counter grew more clean and beautiful, and typically in the washing of the counter I myself am washed over with a sense of peace that even the scent of ammonia cannot abate. But now in place of serenity, frustration festered and ultimately brought me to the point where I was compelled to inwardly declare, This is ENOUGH!

The next morning, I went to Home Depot with neither dollar nor debit card, for the sole purpose of eliciting information on creaky floors from a sales associate. I picked up a coil of hose to carry around as a prop, so that my unconsumeristic agenda would not be detected. Then I found a man named Ron, who informed me that creaky floors can result from a variety of factors, from temperature changes to poor construction.

"But what I really want to know, Ron," I said, "is this: Once the floor creaks, is there anything that can be done? Or do I just have to deal with it?"

Here Ron began to spout off such words as "joists" and "subfloors." Because I understood little more than that I would have to tear up the linoleum, I thanked Ron for his time and did my best to give the impression that I intended to use his advice, which in fact I had absolutely no inclination to do.

Dejected as I was after my conversation with Ron, I was not quite ready to throw in the towel. There had to be a workable solution. So it came to be that I entered the bathroom with tools of my own.

Scissors in hand, I set about cutting a neon orange index card into strips and only hesitated a moment to consider the bizarre nature of what I was about to do before I proceeded to neatly tape the strips onto the bathroom floor with clear packaging tape. I made a prominent dashed-line orange square around the creaky portion of the floor, which I had previously identified through a simple test administered by my foot.

When I was finished, I experimented maneuvering through the bathroom around the newly designated "do not enter" zone. It was a bit tricky at first, mainly because the zone comes right up to the sink, so that I would theoretically have only a three-inch space on which to stand tiptoed while brushing my teeth. But I soon learned that I could brace myself by moving my left foot back to the far left of the orange square, against the wall where the radiator is. This is only mildly awkward.

In just a week, I have almost effortlessly grown used to the small accommodations I have had to make to avoid the Creak. It is with confidence that I claim this repair a success.

The floor still creaks, and in that sense I have done nothing. The problem remains, and it will remain for as long as I choose to walk around it rather than doing anything about it. I still have to hear it from time to time, since my sister periodically taunts me by dancing around inside the square when I am in earshot. On the other hand, I have done something; I have found a way around the problem, so that, as long as I’m careful, I never have to step foot in it again!

Nor do I have to deal with the inconvenience of tearing up a floor and hammering down nails. I’d probably miss the nail and land the hammer on my finger. Or maybe I’d have it all fixed, linoleum re-laid, and then discover that the creaks were still there. Then I’d have to start all over again, because by that point I’d be too invested in the job to allow myself to quit.

Now every time I noiselessly sidle through my bathroom and behold the square there on the ground, I am filled with a pleasing sense of power, control, and amusement at my self-perceived ingenuity. Contrived order has led to contrived bliss, and my world is at contrived peace once more.

—Renee Gehman, Souderton, Pennsylvania, is assistant editor of DreamSeeker Magazine and enjoys creative problem-solving, inauthentic as it may sometimes be.