Ticking off the list

The fan overhead makes a smooth whirring sound, interrupted every so often by a temporary grinding of bearings as they must somehow realign.

Now is not the time for repair.

It’s nighttime, and the lights are out, but I know from my daytime experience with the old air-moving device how precarious the propellers seem to the naked and non-handyman eye.

The fixture doesn’t look entirely fixed as it circles overhead. It spins awkwardly and dangles like a time warped grandfather clock. Jutting out in super circles that were they hips, any yoga teacher would gently try to make more rhythmic.

“That thing is not entirely safe,” I’ve said to myself and the deaf ears of my husband for years.

It’s on his list ... or so he claims. But not exactly a priority.

Besides, it adds the amount of white noise he requires to sleep, and I have learned to tolerate.

During the daytime, this one concern is out-ofmind.

The thing hasn’t come crashing down while we sleep, potentially killing a cat and dispersing its thick coating of dust into the form of a mushroom cloud, the way my mind has imagined it will one of these days. We take such things for granted.

Until then, I’ll continue to avoid sitting directly underneath. So does my husband, a point of selfpreservation that hasn’t gone unnoticed.

In the hallway, a door opens. A line of light walks it’s way up the wall and trespasses into our room. The bathroom door closes.

The doors in this old house are creaky. They echo at night with preternatural amplification.

And although the sound was bothersome in the way loud noises are, it didn’t jolt me awake.

My annoyance seems like a hot flash moment: As if it were an omen awakening me with a silent alarm. An instant later, the reason I can’t sleep through the night washes over me.

It’s like my body doesn’t want me to miss a single, heart palpating moment.

I can tell by the knob clattering around in the lock mechanism that my daughter is awake. Her brother’s door

sounds entirely different. His door doesn’t rattle when it slams. Its knob doesn’t fall out and rolls around on the floor every fifth or sixth turn. That’s also on the list. A list that ticks me off rather than itself.

My list is s constant revolution of things. Laundry. Dishes. Lawn. Laundry. Dishes. Lawn.

All of them — when addressed — are just as noisy as the rattletrap door and the cantankerous ceiling fan.

My daughter will grumble about my waking her sleepover friends with my cacophony in the kitchen.

It would seem that the annoyance amplification is just as robust in the morning time.

Lately, I’ve been letting them pile up.

The laundry silently collects on their floors. The dishes precariously telescope in the sink. The lawn is a carpet of shag.

I’m not taking complaints. That department has closed. But I will consider applications for future employment.

They can be ticked off by my list.

Siobhan Connally is a writer and photographer living in the Hudson Valley. Her column about family life appears weekly in print and online.