The Squeaky Fan

Every once in a while the oscillating fan in my bedroom starts to squeak. Well, it’s more like little chirps than squeaks, but you get the picture. When it makes this glorious noise, most human beings (like my dear beloved husband) would be annoyed however; I fall into a deep sleep that is full of memories and comfort from a far off land…

My room was that very top window. This picture is before my parents repainted and sided and filled cracks….etc. They did A LOT of work to the outside.

When I was 14 years old, my mom and dad agreed that it was time for me to have my own room. I begged them for years to clean out the old storage room on the 3^rd floor across the hall from my older brothers shared bedroom. I’ve always been the independent type so sharing a room with my little sister was cramping my style. My brothers liked to share their bedroom and had no need for their own space, and it helped that one of them was heading off to college soon. So, my mom agreed that as long as I did the work with her, she would allow me to have my own room. FINALLY!

As I recall, cleaning out the storage room was a “family affair”. My dad grew up in this house so there were many boxes of things from his childhood as well as items my aunts had left behind from their early years. There was also a home gym system my brother put into the room to prepare for each football season, along with old furniture and other little treasures the mice had left behind.

I had dreamed of this room being mine since I could remember. It seemed like such a waste to me to have it as a storage room, but in all fairness, with 4 kids my parents had to wait for the right time to decide who got the extra room. I used to love to hide and be by myself. I remember sneaking up the stairs, climbing over the exercise equipment and boxes, until I could finally reach my destination of the old wooden chair in the fair corner of the room. The old chair was an antique with broken wooden back spindles and a broken spring in the seat. I would sit on my “princess throne” for what seemed like hours dreaming of the day this room could be mine.

After weeks of hard work, and my parents teaching me how to wall paper, paint, and lay carpet, the room was finally mine. I felt like a queen in her castle. Mom had taken me shopping for wall paper and sure enough, right by the front of the store was the clearance wall paper. If you know me, you know I headed straight for that clearance section. I was trained at a young age to check those bargain bins! Sure enough I found the perfect wall paper stuck in the bargain bin. It was yellow with blue flowers. As luck would have it, my Grandparents put new carpet in their bedroom so the old carpet was laid in my new room…

Wait a minute… What was this post about? OH RIGHT! This post was about a squeaky fan… how I digress….

Every night as I was falling asleep in my bedroom, I could hear the “critters” inside the walls and roof. At first, they would wake me up. But after a while I got used to the sound of them leaving their homes that they had made in the cracks and crevices of our old house’s outer shell. I could hear the birds swooping and then landing to feed their young. I could hear the tiny chirps of baby birds feeding. I could hear the bats scratching, cooing, and squeaking. After a while, those little noises became a comfort. So now, whenever my fan begins to squeak it takes me back to the time when I was the queen of my imaginary castle… That is, until I’m awakened by my beloved violently ripping off the covers and smacking the fan until it stops squeaking, then proceeding to slam his body back in bed. I guess the squeaky fan does not bring him the same feelings of joy that it brings me. Perhaps I should buy a new fan?