There are lots of leaves in my yard. Billions, I estimate. There are still more leaves on the roof of my house and in my gutters. I've been doing my annual woe-is-me thing about this in the hopes that Charlie would take pity on me and do something about all those leaves. However, when I whined to him about it...this schidt is not what I imagined. Read on.
Charlie had the day off today and declared it Leaf Removal Day. He cleaned out the gutters at White Trash Bob's house, at the house of the Ex-Mrs. WTB, at WTB's rental house, and finally at my house. So there he was, on the roof of my house with my electric leaf blower, blowing the leaves off the roof and out into my yard. (The logic of this escapes me, but whatever.) He was on the roof at the front of the house, above the parlor. Meanwhile, I slept in my warm bed at the other end of the house, blissfully unaware that a very small disaster was about to happen.
Charlie was walking across the roof with the leaf blower when the extension cord caught on the porch roof. So he yanked on the cord to free it. Then he yanked on it again. Then he heard an awful scrrrrrrrrrrape and had just enough time to think, "What the hell was that?" before he heard glass breaking and realized that he'd knocked the ladder sideways.
Charlie peered over the edge of the roof and saw the ladder at a horrible angle some feet away. It occurred to him that he was now trapped on the roof of the house.
Then he leaned farther out over the edge of the roof and took a closer look. The ladder was poking through one of the stained glass windows on my front parlor bay. "Jaynie's gonna kill me," he thought. And then, "I better call WTB for some help."
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| Glazing compound is the only evidence of the accident. |
"Jaynie's gonna kill me," Charlie said.
"Not if she doesn't know about it," WTB said.
"How's she not gonna know about it?! The ladder poked through the middle of the window!" Charlie said.
"Yes," WTB countered, "but she's asleep, isn't she? We can take out the broken window, buy a new piece of glass, fix the window, and clean up the mess before she wakes up."
Charlie grinned, "That just might work."
Some hours later, I woke up and chattered along happily to Charlie about how much I'm looking forward to my days off and how pleased I am that he cleaned out the gutters.
"You're the best!" I said, and gave him a big hug.
"No, I'm not," he said. "I'm really not the best..."
"You are!" I insisted. "You are the best. Just think about all the stuff you do for me."
Then I noticed that Charlie wouldn't look me in the eye. My Spidey-sense began tingling. "What?" I said. "What happened?"
"Dammit," he sighed. "I can't lie to you."
Now ordinarily, I'd say that's a good thing...but when he told me the truth about what happened while I was sleeping, I sorta wished that he was capable of lying. Or at least, of lying by omission. I would really have preferred not to know that he poked the leg of a ladder through the middle of a window that's been in my house, unbroken, since about 1887. I almost cried when I saw the pieces of wavy glass in the trash. On the other hand, as ladders-through-windows go, this wasn't nearly as bad as it could have been. Only the clear glass in the middle was broken. The art glass panes around the outside are still intact. At least Charlie didn't fall off the roof or go through the window himself. And I have an honest man and a repaired window, both good things.