You know how folks say that “seeing is believing?“
Well, it isn’t always true. Sometimes two people can look at the same exact situation, yet see completely different realities.
Take the time I hired a handyman to fix something small. At least I thought it was small.
We needed to fix a corner of my home office, where some ceiling tiles had grown disenchanted with being part of the ceiling and were threatening instead to come unglued and fall to the floor.
“What do you think you’ll need?” I asked him, anxiously, after the inspection was done. “Just some glue maybe? And an hour or two?”
“Oh, it’s all gotta come down,” the man said. There was no doubt in his voice.
I was shocked. “Coming down” was precisely what I was trying to prevent.
“You see here? And here? And all through here?” he said, waving his laser pointer above our heads. “I can’t fix that.” He was pointing to all the other places where we had already glued or nailed or even (only one small place!) duct-taped some other parts of that ceiling.
That was the first time I realized how strange that must look to someone else; I had long since stopped noticing.
In my defense, I wasn’t going for a Better Homes and Gardens photo shoot. I just wanted that ceiling to stay put and out of my way, so I could get on with my work.
But then I looked at it again with the eyes of a stranger — or a handyman — and saw a ceiling that would indeed eventually all have to “come down.”
“Yes,” I said, with a sigh. “And someday we will ask you to come back and bid on doing all that. But for now — just for now, you understand — can you think of a way to get that ceiling tile to stay up on the ceiling? Maybe a way that doesn’t require me to pack up all the papers and books in this room?”
In the end, a solution was reached. It involved both glue and a nail gun, plus some wooden strips, and some paint — and only half a day.
My best friend had a different problem.
She had invited my husband and me for dinner while her husband was out of town and asked us, “Do you notice anything?”
“Um, just that you’re using the good china when we’re only ordering pizza?”
“No, not that. Look around. What do you see?”
“A beautiful chandelier?”
“Behind it.”
It took three or four more tries before we saw what she wanted us to, namely a slightly whiter rectangle on the white wall.
“What are we looking at?” my husband asked.
“Can’t you see it? It’s hideous! I’m amazed you can see anything else in the room, it’s such a mess.”
Turns out my friend had spent all weekend fixing an old crack — going into the garage to find primer and paint that were the right brand name and color, but they still didn’t match. “It’s horrendous!” she said again. “I can’t even eat in here anymore.”
She was crazy, of course, but something about this situation felt familiar. “I’ve got it!” I said. “Remember when we were both teens? And I wouldn’t go to your party, because I KNEW that all anyone would see, looking at me, was my giant zit? A zit that no one — not even my pesky brothers — could see?”
“So you’re calling my home repair a giant zit?” exclaimed my friend.
“No! No! I didn’t mean that! I’m just saying ….”
“What my wife — the diplomat — meant to say,” said my husband, “is that this patch that’s so bothersome to you is invisible to us. Sometimes you only see the specific details you’re looking for. And other people don’t see them at all.”
“I guess,” said my friend.
“Tell you what,” I said. “Let’s try an experiment. Why don’t you leave this for now and come to our house for pizza and see if you can spot the World’s Ugliest Office Ceiling.”
So that’s what we did. “Well, it’s a little rough,” she said, “but nothing some more paint couldn’t fix. Luckily, I’ve got a garage full.”
And we all swapped ugly home repair stories until the pizza arrived.
