Structural Experts

It was a grand old house, broad, high, and well-maintained, with many rooms and ample amenities for its myriad happy Tenants. And, until the Unfortunate Incident, it had successfully weathered the vicissitudes of time for over 200 years.

Before talking about the Unfortunate Incident, I should mention that the grand old house was entrusted to the overall care of a Caretaker. But the needs of the house were too many and varied for any person to handle single-handedly. So the Caretaker employed rafts of specialists to meet these multifarious needs. There were specialist for plumbing, air conditioning, appliance maintenance, cleaning, food service, and many others.

But everyone agreed that the most vital specialists were the Structural Experts. Without them, the house would collapse. Structural engineering was an arcane specialty that required the best, brightest, and most brilliant minds, and such minds could be had neither cheaply nor without bonuses

Ah, but the Unfortunate Incident. There had been unfortunate incidents before, one of them even Unfortunate, but the Caretaker of the time, his dedicated assistants, and the residents of the house had always risen to the occasion, and fixed the problem. Perhaps the roof on the back porch had collapsed, or a section of wall had sagged, or the plumbing had had to be replaced. But such are the trials of home ownership. But the Unfortunate Incident was ... more severe. Not to put too fine a point on it, the walls of the first floor collapsed, and each higher floor moved down one, working hell with the numbering system, I can tell you. Then the foundation creaked, and the entire house leaned over at an angle of approximately 45 degrees. The Tenants were a bit perturbed, except for those who had been on the first floor at the time of the Incident.

Everyone turned to the Caretaker for an explanation, encouragement, and a plan for repairing the damage. Fortunately, a new Caretaker had just been hired following the ignominious sacking of his predecessor. The Tenants knew the old Caretaker to be an incompetent bozo, so they were (a) not terribly surprised that the Unfortunate Incident had occurred and (b) confident that the new guy could handle it. But they were very angry at the Structural Experts and didn't trust any of them any further than you could spit a barbell.

"We think the Structural so-called 'Experts' are to blame," cried the Tenants, as one.

"Fear not, fear not!" said the Caretaker soothingly. "You're right about the old-regime Structural Experts, but I have shit-canned the old Chief of the Structural Experts and hired a new one, who is going to fix everything."

"Wait a minute," protested the Tenants, when they heard the name of the new Chief. "Wasn't he, like, the first lieutenant and brother-in-law of the last guy?"

"Well, of course, he was a close associate of the last Chief of Structural Experts," explained the Caretaker patiently. "These are the best and the brightest! That is, no one else knows how to do what they do."

"But y'see," said the Tenants, "these are the geniuses whose act gave us the Unfortunate Incident in the first place. It doesn't seem ... sane to just let them keep on doing it. If you see what we mean."

"Fear not, fear not!" repeated the Caretaker. "The new Chief SE is one of my guys now. I told him to see the light, and he has. Anyway, who better to undo a disaster than the ones who caused it? Did I mention that no one else knows what a Structural Expert does?"

"Yes, yes, you did," grumbled the Tenants. "But just one more thing. Have you notice that your Structural Experts are all termites?"

"Well, of course, they're all termites," replied the Caretaker. "What else could they be? Who else would know so much about wooden structures?"

"Um, we hate to bring up the s-a-n-i-t-y thing again," said the Tenants, "but this is just delusional."

"Well, of course, it's delusional," cried the Caretaker, "but there just isn't any other way!"