Air Force

by Doug Love

Two laws that govern the movements of objects inside houses are important to learn.

Law Number One: “If you slam the front door of a house with sufficient force, it will cause the interior walls of that house to vibrate to the extent that a shelf as far away as 24 feet from the point of impact will eject a vase from its surface and send it crashing to the floor below.”

Law Number Two:: “If all the windows and doors in an air-tight house are closed, and you turn on the whole-house fan, and if that whole-house fan is of sufficient size and capacity, it will cause an air suction of such force so as to cause ashes from within a fireplace to be instantly sucked out through the fireplace opening with the appearance of confetti shot from a cannon. A 12-foot radius of flooring in front of the fireplace opening will acquire an ashy-gray hue similar to the surface of the moon.”

I learned of the two aforementioned laws one afternoon while showing a house to my clients Bob and Denise Carlson, and more importantly, their eight-year-old son Mason.

Bob and I stood in the hallway of the house admiring the whole-house fan built into the ceiling. I had never seen one so big and Bob had never seen one at all.

“A whole-house fan,” I said, “is designed to pull stale warm air out of your house. When the outside temperature cools in the evening, you open a few windows, turn on the fan, and it pulls fresh outside air into the house quickly.”

Mason raced around the house opening and closing doors and flipping wall switches on and off. Neither Bob nor Denise showed any concern or any interest in controlling the curious and energetic child.

Mason went outside and rang the doorbell at least 47 times, then slammed the front door, a big heavy oaken mass, with enough force to enact Law Number Two.

A vase wobbled and tumbled off a shelf on the wall beside the fireplace. But the carpet below was thick, plush, and the whitest of white, and cushioned the fall. The vase remained intact.

It was then that Mason found the wall switch for the whole-house fan. I noticed that Mason had opened the glass doors to the fireplace and I was just about to close them, when Law Number Two was enacted.

I forgot to mention in my description of Law Number Two that any objects within the 12-foot radius of the fireplace will also acquire an ashy-gray hue similar to the surface of the moon.