- Carpet-laying is a rigorous occupation under the best
of circumstances.
-
- Throughout the morning, Mike and I had been busy ripping-out
about 40 yards of carpeting in one of our local retirement residences...
carpet which had been installed only two months previously. However, as
sometimes happens, once the Board of Directors (who had selected the carpet
after much debate) had taken a look at it on the horizontal, they decided
it was not what they really wanted. Thus, my encore performance to install
their new and (hopefully) more pleasing selection.
-
- The building, constructed back in the 1800's, is home
to sixteen stately, senior ladies. In fact, so senior are they - the youngest
being 80-years old - that the laying of new carpeting amounted to a major
production in their usually quite predictable daily routine.
-
- We finished removing the forty square yards just before
lunchtime. The premium glue we had previously used still had 2-foot 'legs'
- strings of glue, which, as it turns out, was still quite active. In fact,
it possessed a grip to rival the jaws of a great white.
-
- Because I had come into the building from the wet, snowy
outdoors, the glue did not - at first - stick readily to my soles. However,
after walking on it for a time it would periodically claim - and remove
- my shoes...no questions asked.
-
- So powerful was its grip that, as I looked at the clock,
I became immediately concerned and realized I had to move fast: there was
a veritable rush of women about surge down the hallway to converge on the
20-foot stately table in the grand dining room. I had noticed earlier how
the table was beautifully set with only the finest silverware and linen...a
truly elegant dining setting for the residents of this fine old house.
Meals here were clearly a highlight of the day.
-
- I made a last quick pass down the hall, checking the
surface of the bare but treacherous floor.
-
- The first ladies' slipper I noticed seemed strangely
out of place but then, one stride later, my eye discovered its companion.
My gaze then traced the forward route of the shoe-deprived traveler and
next came upon a small ladies' nylon sock. And again, a stride later,
its matching cohort appeared. All four items trapped...in still life...but
no traveler to be seen.
-
- I called out, "Mike? Where is this stuff coming
from?"
-
- Mike, my stepson, poked his head from around the corner
saying, "What stuff?" I looked back to him, my hand pointing
to the four pieces of successively marooned items of footwear. Mike looked
at the slippers and socks. He then peered right past me saying, "I'm
betting they're hers." Mike pointed toward a door which made a right-hand
exit into the next hallway.
-
- There she was...an intrepid barefooted little soul, clinging
tenaciously to a wheeled walker. The natural oil from her feet had almost
allowed her to make the thirty feet to the next corridor -- almost. I
noticed her legs trembling as she repeatedly strained to lift her right
foot against the grip of the glue from forever.
-
- For some bizarre reason, I failed to consider the lack
of merit in vocalizing the obviousness of her plight, and yelled out: "Don't
move, you're in glue!"
-
- I ran up to her, saying I would return in a moment with
some water. I assured her that placing her foot in a small amount of water,
poured onto the floor, would allow her to tred on the glue without becoming
stuck.
-
- Walking back into the laundry room to get a cup of water,
I heard her say, "Don't move? Don't move?? I have been here for two
minutes. I couldn't move an inch further if someone hooked a tractor to
me." She sounded perplexed.
-
- We have all encountered them: situations where it is
just not appropriate to laugh. But try as Mike and I could, we couldn't
fight it off. In fact, I was laughing so hard - not out loud, mind you
- while trying to fill the plastic cup with water, I kept spilling it.
My body shook uncontrollably as I tried to steady the cup which I now held
desperately with both hands. High-pitched porcine-like squeals emerged
from my throat as I tried valiantly to fight off a truly bone-jarring volcanic
eruption of howling laughter. I was ashamed but then, again, it wasn't
every day one comes across a lady trapped in time, as it were.
-
- I finally made it back to her. My tear-streaked cheeks
the only telltale sign of my ferocious battle with uproarious laughter.
I knelt down and poured a small amount of water in front of her bonded
right foot. I told her not to try and lift her foot too fast, but that
if she slowly and gently kept upward force on it, the evil glue would eventually
release her.
-
- As her foot became free, I instructed her to place it
in the small pool of water I had poured next to it. I told her to do likewise
with her other foot. In a couple minutes, she was liberated - and wasted
no time disappearing around the corner and out of sight. As she walked
away, I told her she would now be okay and that she should be able to make
it to the dining room for lunch.
-
- I had then spun around, placing my face into my coat
which was hanging on an old heating register by the door. The coat served
to muffle most of my unrestrained laughter. I heard Mike beside me asking,
"Are you OK?" I dared not lift my face out of my coat and just
pointed in the direction I had last seen her walking.
-
- Mike turned back saying, "You better get another
cup of water...she's stuck again...just two-feet shy of the dining room.
Your gonna have to grease her wheels again!" At that point, I could
no longer make coherent sound and could only point in her direction in
agreement as laughter drove me to my knees. Mike intuitively understood
what I was trying to convey and told the would-be diner I was on my way
with more water.
-
- I took several deep breaths and managed to stand up.
I placed my coat back onto the register and looked at Mike. I mustered
a grave and serious look and said: "Tell her not to move." That
was all it took for Mike to make an immediate lunge for my coat, burying
his face as I had done.
-
- Once again, I moved down the hall and, for the second
time, rescued the damsel in distress.
-
- The head mistress of the home, sizing up the situation
quickly, suggested some of the ladies might need to be carried to the dining
room to prevent any further entrapments and said, "I think you should
carry Mrs. Smith, if you would, she will never make it. She is in the room
next to the laundry room."
-
- I walked to Mrs. Smith's room introducing myself and
explained the dynamics of the situation. I told her I would carry her to
the diningroom. "Are you sure? I'm much heavier than I look."
-
- "That's okay Mrs. Smith, perhaps you are just a
little shy. Now place your left arm over my shoulder."
-
- I stooped, placing my right hand behind her back, and
my left behind her knees.
-
- "Oh my," she said as I whisked her into my
arms.
-
- "Oh my goodness!"
-
- "Oh my!"
-
- Mrs. Smith then started to laugh hysterically as she
slapped my shoulder with her left hand.
-
- "Oh my....MY!"
-
- The hallway was now lined with curious faces peering
out of doors. Laughter then began to ripple up and down the corridor as
the women watched me pass, door after door, with the hysterically-laughing
Mrs. Smith perched high up in my arms.
-
- I stopped short of the diningroom and bellowed in my
best Rhett Butler voice, "Now where is that honeymoon suite?"
-
- The women flat erupted...shrieking and howling with hilarious
laughter, sounding far more like a high school cheerleading camp than a
retirement home.
-
- As I placed Mrs. Smith gingerly and safely in the dining
room, I heard a rather frail voice yell, "I'm next! And I'm going
piggyback!" I felt my face flush as the entire population of the home
exploded in happy delirium.
-
- I walked back to Mike telling him to feel free to piggyback
a few of the stranded ladies. "Sorry, dad, it's not in my job description.
You're on your own."
-
- I looked for and found a walker which would allow the
women to sit as I wheeled them, one after another, safely over the glue
field to their daily luncheon.
-
- The dining room, that day, was awash in outburts of hearty
laughter, as the ladies relived their stories of being carried, wheeled
and rescued by a gallant carpet layer.
-
- Chivalry, it seems, is still with us.
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