When I ascended the small wood ladder into my cramped attic, I turned on the light and looked into the expanse of dusty cobwebs, HVAC ductwork, cross beams, and old cardboard boxes.
My wife and I were decorating our house for the winter holiday season. While she was arranging garland, candles, and holiday knick-knacks, I was trying to find every strand of lights. The only box I could find quickly was filled with the newer LED style lights that we tend to keep indoors and use throughout our living room and dining room. For outdoors, we instead gravitate towards the older incandescent style lights. Sure, they’re more frustrating to maintain and to fix whenever a bulb goes out, but I just prefer the way they glow in evening winter snow. It could be nostalgia bias, since incandescent bulbs were all that was available when I was a young child, but they still are beautiful in their own right. I found most of them while rummaging in the garage, but then I remembered I stashed some that I bought during an after holidays sale several years ago. I put them in the attic and never took them down, with all of them still in their original packaging. When I ascended the small wood ladder into my cramped attic, I turned on the light and looked into the expanse of dusty cobwebs, HVAC ductwork, cross beams, and old cardboard boxes. It took me at least an hour of twisting and bending in tight angles while trying to avoid stepping into ceiling insulation. In fixating on the insulation, I didn’t realize that I had stepped right into a section of flexible ductwork, piercing it completely with my foot. The embarrassment I felt telling my wife was overwhelming, but she was understanding albeit still insistent that we make arrangements for ventilation repair as soon as possible. Thankfully, our technician is scheduled to arrive tomorrow afternoon to repair the damaged ductwork.