The Day the Sky Fell

Years ago, a college friend told me that the Viet Cong often staged ambushes from trees because American soldiers were so intent on what was ahead of them that they rarely looked up. Over the years that conversation has occasionally resurfaced in my mind, and when it does I usually look up, just to see if there's anything interesting there. Usually there isn't, but sometimes there is. Like this:

A few nights ago I noticed our bathroom ceiling was bulging downward, and the plaster was cracked at the bottom. The roof had always sagged a bit there, but I hadn't remembered it being that bad. I decided to keep an eye on it.

Later that night after I woke up to feed Daniel, I checked on the bulge and discovered it had sunk several inches lower, and the crack that was the length of my finger was now the length of my hand. I tried to go back to sleep, but I kept hearing ominous creaking noises from our bathroom. I finally woke Phillip up to let him know what was going on, and the moment he looked at our ceiling he agreed that it would break before the morning did. Sure enough . . .

Around 4am several square feet of our ceiling caved in. It was kind of a relief--now that it had finally happened I didn't have to worry about it anymore. We inspected the damage, and noticed a leaky pipe that was no doubt the cause of the problem.

I'm glad to report that when we contacted our apartment managers the next morning, they promptly arranged for the fix-it guys to come work on our bathroom.

They tore out a huge swath of our ceiling, fixed the leaky pipe, hammered, plastered, and painted . . .

. . . and now our bathroom is as good as new. Huzzah!

Moral of the story: Don't forget to look up. You never know what you might see.