July 13, 2022

 

Our charming eighty-year-old house comes with the original owner's story of her family hand-digging the basement to provide more space. While an amazing feat, it carries the resulting lack of conventional building standards. I find it amusing that Steve, an architect, is the SECOND professional to live in this house, but I digress.

The stairs, steep with uneven height risers, are, in my mind, a horror movie invention to lure the unwary and then forever trap them. EVERY member of the White Dog Army is taught to fear the "below;" and the door is always closed and bolted. That is unless Steve descends in some sort of "basement-y" task.

When that happens, the WDA mills in the kitchen uneasy at his disappearance. Diva, devoted Dad Helper, bravely inches her way to the door and cries piteously into the depths until Steve calls up to her, "For goodness sake, Diva, I am just putting things in the wardrobe. (or some such). I will be right up."

His reappearance at the top of the stairs begins the Song of Joyful Return which reaches a crescendo when he reshuts and locks the door.