Ceiling

A ceiling is the inside top of a room. It is the floor of the room above, viewed from underneath, which is why nobody walks on it except flies, who have not been told.^[1]

Ceilings are usually painted white so that nobody looks at them. They are looked at mainly by people lying in bed who cannot sleep.

Height

The average ceiling is 2.4 metres high, or about 2.1 metres when measured by someone carrying a wardrobe upstairs, which is the only time a ceiling is ever measured.^[2]

Hitting the ceiling

To “hit the ceiling” means to become suddenly angry. In practice it mostly describes a person carrying a ladder indoors.

Cracks

Every ceiling has one crack shaped like a map of somewhere. Cartographers have catalogued 2,300 of these coastlines; none matches anywhere real, although one is quite close to a lake.^[3]

See also

• Skyscraper – a very tall stack of ceilings
• Ladder – brings you closer than intended

References

1. Plaster, P. (1952). Up To Here. Lath & Co.
2. Carrie, W. (2010). “It Fitted in the Shop”. Removals Review 8.
3. Crack, C. (2018). “A Coastline of Nowhere”. Lying Awake Quarterly 9.