Do You Hear What I Hear?

my wife and i have lived at our current address for over 13 years now, and i have become very familiar with the sights, the smells, and particularly the SOUNDS of my house. this morning there was a strange rattle i had never heard before coming from the water heater. i immediately thought “something is gonna have to get fixed,” so i recorded the sound with my mp3 player. i figured this would be better than trying to describe the sound to a repair man. a minute later, the same sound came from the furnace. that’s when i remembered a story that a friend told me years ago, about a woodpecker on his house. when i went outside, there WAS a woodpecker, but he flew away before i could throw something at him.