A Quick Observation

When Dostoevsky said, "Man can get used to anything," I know he meant real suffering. But I find this aphorism to be true in a more domestic sense as well. That hole in my kitchen ceiling, for instance. The little "ding" noise and flashing brake light in my car, which I've endured at random intervals since March. The refrigerator handle that has to be tightened with a screwdriver twice a week. The fact that the plumbing in our house is such that you can take a bath in my room but not a shower, a shower in Jack's but not a bath, and you can't run the washing machine while you're doing either (or some pipe or drain will overflow and flood the kitchen through that hole). We become so accustomed to the perverse routine that it stops seeming inconvenient.


Another related development: About six or eight weeks or so ago, we put the tent in what used to be our spare sort-of office, so Lola and a sleepover friend could spend the night in it. We never intended to leave it up, but no one has bothered to take it down. We've started referring to it (without any irony) as "The tent room." As in:

"Have you seen the water bill?" "
"I think it's on the desk in the tent room."

or

"Take the clothes out of the dryer and put them in the tent room while I find the screwdriver."