Ok, I will post a sensible post. Sorry, I’ll re-phrase that – I will post a post with words in it. No guarantee will be made for the level of sense found therein.
My father has altered the creak pattern of the stairs. My room is on the mezzanine floor, two steps under the top floor where the bathroom is. In my quest for said bathroom this evening at 2am New Time I began my long accustomed Dance Of The Creak Avoidance out of my room and up those two stairs. This involves avoiding a hidden area of creak by my door, standing on the brass strip across the doorway, missing the mezzanine step completely, and stepping onto the first step edge before stepping onto the landing. The mezzanine step creaks like the doors of Hell** and so is best avoided even during daylight. The later steps are somewhat creaky, but using the edges of them previously minimised any noise.
And so, this evening I begin my ritual, only to find that my father has repaired the mezzanine stair, a fact that half registered in my mind and so disrupted the routine and caused me to distractedly step on the middle of the first step and then trip onto the landing. So rattled was I by this failure, I was thrown on the return trip also, and stepped on the mezzanine stair (now silent) but forgot the entrance of my room hid another secret creak.
You wouldn’t think home improvement could be so emotionally devastating. *twitches*
**I apologise for questioning without fair basis the quality of care the maintenance people of Hell carry out on the doors therein.