One day in 2003 I thought to myself, "I'm going to grab the caulking gun and caulk along that spot where the upstairs bathtub meets the floor." This was a task that needed doing -- we could see that there was some leakage from the upstairs bathroom of our ugly little apartment into the downstairs ceiling -- but I am not a person given to spontaneous caulking. There was an unexpected lull in my chaotic life with three small children, and something in my brain said TIME TO CAULK THE TUB.
A couple of days later a hose inside our washing machine disconnected itself, and water flooded through the downstairs ceiling. It was a MESS, and getting the machine fixed was such a hassle that I vowed never to buy another Haier appliance. But I kept thinking to myself how much worse it could have been. If I hadn't had that funny little urge to caulk the tub, the water would have poured right through that spot where the bathtub met the floor -- right into our antique set of the Encyclopedia Britannica.
Shortly after that my husband lost his job. It felt pretty bleak at the time. We had moved across the country for him to take this job, and poof -- it was gone. In the stressful weeks that followed I kept thinking about that bathtub. It was as if God had said to me, "I can mitigate your disasters." I've remembered it ever since. We live in a world full of trouble, but it's surprising how often somebody has caulked the tub.
Remember when I railed about Gina Haspel? During the Trump purges in December she decided, for the first time in weeks, to go to the president's daily intelligence briefing. That decision made it possible for her to keep a pro-Trump extremist out of CIA leadership, even when it looked like a done deal. Thanks for caulking the tub, Ms. Haspel, and I'll keep praying for you to reconsider your position on torture.
Amid the frustrations about the vaccine rollout, it's easy to lose sight of how remarkable it is that we have not one but two vaccines to roll out, with more on the way. It hasn't been that long since we didn't know if a vaccine would be possible, let alone effective. It feels miraculous to me that these vaccines came together as quickly and successfully as they did, and I will not be surprised if some unexpected stories emerge as we go along -- a scientist who decided impulsively to try out a new idea, or to choose Option A over Option B. The pandemic is a once-in-a-lifetime disaster, but the vaccine feels to me like a caulking-the-tub moment.
I am seeing it too in the stories emerging from the Capitol riots. It seemed plenty bad enough as it unfolded, but OH my friends, it could have been so much worse. They narrowly missed crossing paths in a hallway with the very vice-president they wanted to hang. Cleveland Meredith's plans to put a bullet in Nancy Pelosi's noggin were foiled when he needed a minor vehicle repair. (I will pray that he finds Jesus in prison.) I have to tell you, I haven't even been able to read all the way through this Atlantic article. But do you know what it says to me as I squint at it with one eye, as if to keep the stressful bits at bay? Somebody caulked that tub.
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