The roof in my building leaks.

There are a couple spots — I’m in a biggish building — but the regular offender is our prop room. Water comes in right in the corner by the door and about ten feet further on, where it pools in the light fixture. This freaked me out at first, but the guy told me it was nothing to worry about.

It has leaked for years, and every year, they fix it. (“Fix” it.) It gets good and dry back there, and when it rains a bit, sure enough, it stays dry. For just long enough for us to begin taking it for granted. Then months later, heavy rains come (and, uh, I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but it’s currently raining heavily in the South), and that familiar pat-pat-pat starts up.

And the guy comes back around to fix it (“fix” it). We see each other and shake our heads, as if to say, “here we are again, huh?” And he’ll say something like “thought we had it licked last time” and I’ll say “yep, man, it’s been bone dry for the longest time, but all of a sudden…” and off he goes to fix it (“fix” it) again. There’s a kind of resignation about the guy every time I see him, yet he’s always smiling. Like he’s been beat down by the job or by life or whatever, but he’s happy to go a few more rounds.

Of course, the pat-pat-pat that means I have to clean out the prop room again is just the sound of job security to him. Size of our campus, there are always leaky roofs.