What's Tony Thinking

It Could Be Worse

About three weeks ago Linda was doing an on-line yoga class in our bedroom. The instructor said, “Let your gaze float upwards.” As she did, Linda was startled by what she saw. Not celestial glory but clear evidence of a leak, water damaged wall board and what could be mold in a corner of our high ceiling where we seldom had occasion to look.

We got up on the roof of our small condo building, and discovered a slice in the material of the flat roof over our unit. As we live near the Salish Sea, my theory was that a seagull dropped an oyster shell out of the sky. Sharp edges on those buggers. But who knows?

This led to an invasion by a crew that does “remediation.” Five young men in haz-met gear worked inside plastic tenting emerging occasionally with an update for the natives. Very sci-fi. Now, after twelve days of blowers, de-humidifers, plastic wind-tunnels running into various gaping holes in the ceiling, and daily visits from one or more of the crew, that phase is over. It is now quiet. Eerily so. Wonderfully so.

It reminded me of one of my favorite children’s stories, It Could Always Be Worse: A Yiddish Folk Tale by Margot Zemach. Years ago, I had even memorized it for a story-telling workshop.

As the story has it, a Russian peasant is living in his tiny house with his mother, his wife and his six children. The wife quarrels with her mother-in-law. The husband quarrels with his wife. And the six children are constantly fighting with one another. Beside himself, the man goes to his rabbi for advice.

“Do you promise,”asks the rabbi, “to do whatever I tell you to do?” “Yes,” said the desperate householder.

“Do you have any chickens?” “Yes,” answered the perplexed peasant. “Bring the chickens into your house.” Having already agreed to do whatever the rabbi told him to do, the man brought the chickens into the mix, where they began scratching everywhere and building nests.

The man returned to the rabbi and reported that things weren’t any better . . . actually worse. The rabbi asked, “Have you got a cow?” “Yes.” “Then bring the cow into the house.” The cow joined the party in the tiny house and did what cows do, and to be clear it’s not all just mooing. Next a goat, who proceeds to eat away at the furniture.

The man returns to the rabbi who asks, “Do you have in-laws?” “Well, yes,” says the man. “Invite your in-laws to come and stay with you in your home.”

You see where this is going?

Beside himself the man returns to the rabbi, lamenting the wild chaos of his home life.

“Invite the in-laws to leave,” says the rabbi. “And when they are gone, take the cow outside.” “Then, put the chickens back in the yard.” “The goat as well.”

The man returns to the rabbi one final time, to report that his home is now amazingly quiet, calm, and in fact wonderful (even though he still lives in the tiny hut with his mother, his wife and his six children).

And the moral of the story is . . . (If you need to state “the moral of the story” it’s not a very good story.)

As for our project, we’re not out of the woods yet. Today, the remediation crew is done, and a roofer arrived to inspect things in the sub-roof. Sheet-rockers are next. Then painting. It’s like medical personnel. Each a specialist!

But for now, there are no more blowers or de-humidifiers, no more clanging space heaters to keep the other machines at operating temperatures (as absence of insulation and holes in the roof — during one of Seattle’s rare cold snaps –make it cold, and the various worker people — whose every knock and bang rilled the dog — are also gone on to their next job.

So it’s grand. It’s sooooo quiet.

And, yes, I do understand these are “first world problems.” And federal workers have real problems.

But still, it brought to mind that wonderful little Yiddish tale and its reminder that “It could always be worse.”