The Squeaky Door

There is an old saying that the squeaky wheel gets oiled. I know the saying is old because I said it last night at the dinner table and my teenage son looked at me as though I was talking crazy. Of course, I immediately repeated “the squeaky wheel gets oiled” and then I muttered under my breath, “but not the squeaky door”. My husband noticed my muttering and asked what I meant. Both my son and I looked at him in surprise while he insisted that he had no idea that there was a squeaky door in our house.

The door to the bathroom in the hallway has been squeaking for months. A long grinding squeal causes a wince every time the door is used. You imagine the whole world now knows where you are and what you are doing. My son jumped up from the table, ran down the hall and repeatedly opened and closed the door until we were all painfully aware of just how horrible squeaking can really sound. My husband swore he had never noticed the noise and he got right up and fixed it.

When he returned, he mentioned that if we needed something fixed, we only had to tell him. I told him that I had not asked him to oil the door because I did not want him to feel like he is the handy man. I know he takes great pride in caring for our family and our house. I also know that he will get to all the things when he can, but I had not realized that he had never noticed the squeak and I do not like to “nag”. I also think that I, as a capable twenty-first century woman, should be able to fix a squeaky door on my own. I felt like I was being nice, patient and loving by not asking him to fix a door that I could just as easily fix myself.

One has to wonder if I was actually being nice or if there is something else going on there. I do recall having some uncharitable thoughts about how long it was taking to get this door fixed. As evidenced by my under the breath muttering noted above. If we are being truthful, I should add that even though I could definitely fix the door if I had to, I never really planned to do it.

In reality, the door was squeaky for so long because I expected my husband to notice and fix it. I did not think I had to participate in a squeaky door and I treated him as though he were actually the handy man. Fixing a door is a small matter and yet I somehow managed to turn it into a relational disconnect that I carried around for months. Because it is minor, this is not likely to leave a deep wound on our marriage, at least not by itself. It is a cut and one so innocuous that I almost missed it. How many more have we already endured over the years? Moreover, how many more can we take?