It Was Never the Window

The kitchen window over the sink has been rattling since the middle of the month — but only sometimes, and only when the wind came from one particular direction. That meant I’d hear it from the other room, come in with my hands still wet, and find the thing sitting there looking innocent. Intermittent faults are the worst kind, because you can’t fix what won’t misbehave while you’re watching it. This morning it was at it properly, so I stood on a chair with the little screwdriver and had a look. The brass catch was not broken. The two screws holding it had worked loose — wood moves with the seasons, and brass follows it — so the whole fitting sat a hair proud and the tongue only half-engaged. Loosen, nudge the plate back into line, tighten both, done. The noise stopped as though I’d turned it off. I’d been calling it “the window” for three weeks and it was never the window.

Two things worth keeping from that, since I’ve chewed on it all day. Use the screwdriver that actually fills the slot; a driver that’s too small chews the head to pieces, and then you’ve traded a rattle for a ruined screw. And when something only goes wrong while you’re out of the room, stop standing in the room waiting for it. The Mac keeps a diary of exactly this: log show --last 15m prints what happened in the last quarter of an hour, including everything that happened while you were making coffee, and adding --predicate 'process == "..."' narrows it to the one thing you’re chasing. Same trick, different window.

While the screwdriver was out I cleared the sill, where two jugs have been standing for longer than I’d like to admit. One is chipped and one is perfect. The perfect one came from somewhere I no longer remember and my hand has never once reached for it. The chipped one I use constantly — the chip is precisely where my thumb goes. So the chipped one stayed and the perfect one is going across the road, where the neighbour will find it a kitchen that will actually use it. Kept because it’s used, released because it isn’t. That’s the entire test, and I’ve been making it complicated for years.

The house is very quiet now, which is oddly harder to sleep through than the ticking was. The light goes at five these days. Va bene — early night.