Importance of The Door to the House

In "Food for the Common Cold," David observes that the frame of the front door of his house is crooked. When he looks at it at a certain angle, however, he is able to convince himself that the frame is straight. The door is a stand-in for the complex and fraught relationship that the four residents of the house have. Just as the door is in fact fundamentally unsound, but straight when looked at from certain angles, there are fundamental divisions between the members of David's family that occasionally dissolve in moments of warmth.