The Tale of a Hole (and Water too)

(Apologies for the various edits to the post. I'm adding one more, this time to the content since I forgot an important detail in the story! That's what happens when we write a whole post in 30 minutes, while the "baby" was still sleeping -- problem is, he woke up and I didn't proofread, not that I ever do :-))

Once upon a time there was a tiny hole. Or maybe, we should say that once upon a time there was a tree, and the tree had many knots. One day, that tree was cut down and became a wooden plank. This knotty plank was used to build a roof, and asphalt shingles were placed upon it, as well as a protective and cozy felt covering. Many years passed and those shingles began to wear off. The soft felt covering began thinning out and rip, and water began to come it. The plank must have been excited to absorb all that water again, and the knot too. However... the knot ended up forming a small hole because there was just so much nice water coming in.

The hole was small, but the water was sneaky and made its way to the drywall ceiling underneath by dripping slowly through the hole. The water enjoyed that porous material very much and happily soaked through it. Once that ceiling began to sag, the people from that house put a blue dishpan on top of the ceiling. The water was not that thrilled, but the hole was still happy and continued to expand. Even fixing the shingles didn't keep the water from coming in. The pan got so full that it toppled, so the water began to pool in the lowest spots of that ceiling and just happily soak into that thirsty sheetrock.

Some years (?) later a new family moved into the house, and when they decided to renovate the kitchen, they needed to paint the ceiling. The woman was very picky and wanted to dust the ceiling with a wet cloth before her husband painted it. That's when she saw the dark spots, and the tiny bubbles forming under the paint. "What is that?" She said to her husband, "I think it's mildew!!" She exclaimed, "Yikes!" He climbed a ladder and began to touch the surface, and poke his finger at it (he is much less picky, and would have just painted over it, most probably). Meanwhile she quickly climbed into the attic to have an overhead view. That's when she saw the man's finger poking right through that frazzled drywall! She also saw the blue tipped dishpan, but she didn't look inside since it was a few feet away. She missed the opportunity of being totally freaked out by the fact that it would have been full of water.

The man noticed that a whole section of the kitchen ceiling was sagging, but he thought that maybe only that place with the old mildew/mold could be fixed, so he carefully cut a small square hole. And he called his friend, the one who installs drywall. The friend said he'd come take a look on the next day, a Friday, when the family would be away in Massachusetts. On Monday, the day of the family's return, while they were driving home, the man told the woman about this horrible nightmare he'd had that very night. He had dreamed that water had come in through every single wall of the house and that now everything was horribly moldy and the house had to be completely redone. He panicked and called a good friend who does construction to see what could be done. Good thing it was just a dream, he remarked to his wife, but a really scary one! She nodded in understanding.

You cannot imagine that man's face when the family arrived home that evening and a whole piece, wall to wall, in the kitchen ceiling had been ripped off!! The drywall friend had come on Friday and had deemed that whole part of the ceiling as utterly dangerous. [note: I added that just to make sure you don't think the storm caused the damage] The blue dishpan was on the floor, with water in it, and it was only then that the woman told the man she already knew that there had been a dishpan up there in the attic. It turns out that there had been a really strong storm on Saturday, and water had come from the hole into the pan. Yes, from that hole, the one this story is about, it was only then that the family found out about its existence. They looked up and could see the light coming in through this tiny hole on the roof.

The man climbed quickly on the roof and found the hole! He started poking his finger through it and the whole knot came out, making it much bigger! Now his whole hand could be seen, and the blue sky too! Even the woman came out to take a look at it and take pictures because it was scary looking up and seeing the sky from inside your own kitchen! The man covered the hole with a tarp and called up his friend who had removed the drywall. He joked with the friend that we should have been warned of the ceiling removal before getting into the house and also mentioned the scary nightmare. The friend assured us that he would be able to quickly put the drywall back on the following Sunday and he so he did (of course we paid him what he asked, I should note).

What about the hole, however? Something had to be done! So the man called his construction friend (the same guy who had been married at a beach just a week earlier) who recommended this roof guy who did excellent work and didn't charge that much. Roof guy came in and gave an estimate while also explaining to the man that he could decide to do only the roof over the kitchen, but also pointed out many other flaws on that roof. The roof had been redone three times, and could no longer be patched any more. The man also called the family's realtor, and she also gave the phone number of another roof guy. With two estimates, the family made the tough decision of going ahead and replacing the roof even if that meant spending money that they didn't have. The prospect of snow falling on that defective roof and more happy holes filling with drippy water was not appealing to them, obviously.

So, on this bright Thursday morning, the roof is being removed with noisy shovels. And the funniest thing is that the littlest boy in the family has slept for over an hour even with all that racket. The man has gone to the home improvement store to pick up the new shingles, and the woman just carried her little boy outside to show him what is going on. So I guess this is the end of the story for that sneaky hole! And the woman is kind of glad that she was picky and found out about the hole before the kitchen ceiling came crashing through their brand new kitchen! It had been holding on only by the tapes on each side of the drywall, can you imagine how dangerous!

Bye bye, hole, may you never come back!

~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~
Many pictures will follow. I am actually glad that the desktop is not online yet and I got to have fun using only words to share this with you!

Addendum: Unhappily K misunderstood the amount of shingles that needed to be purchased and he needs to rent the store's truck again and do at least three more trips back and forth. Because of this confusion, he had decided to purchase a slightly more expensive type of shingle and this is going to cost us more than we anticipated! :-(

You know, I'm thinking of various things that I could do to make more money: from making and selling fresh salsa to the neighbors to buying more music tracks and offering my service to the Brazilian community as a musician for weddings. I certainly need to get more piano students, that's for sure. On a happy note, I have the perspective of a temporary job that may help us a bit.