Jerry popped a French fry in his
mouth as we ate lunch, and studied me a moment. He swallowed. “Well, are you
going to tell anyone about this, Lucy?”
Lucy (after Lucille Ball) had
become my moniker whenever I’d done something that might compare to her
character’s outrageous antics.
The waitress streaked by, and I
took a sip of cherry Coke Zero. “I don’t know.”
That was a few weeks ago, and I
guess in time, I’ve gotten over the sting of this episode enough to tell it.
But please, I beg you, don’t email me to tell me how crazy this was, and how I
could have been killed, etc. I’ve already had a couple of people pin me to the
wall on it. I am sufficiently admonished, and I promise I WILL NOT try this
again. Here’s what happened:
It started with a fluttering.
“Hey, did you hear that sound in
your office?” Jerry said interrupting one of my painting sessions in the living
room. I’d been working on an extra large canvas, which wouldn’t fit in my
regular painting spot in my office/studio.
We investigated and thought it a
bird in a woodstove chimney, maybe stuck in a part of the chimney in the attic,
which meant getting on the roof to take the chimney cap off so the bird could
get free.
Here’s the thing. Jerry has one
replaced knee and the other one needs it. He’s not getting on any roofs.
But my knees work great. “I’ll do
it.”
However, we didn’t have an
extension ladder, only a stepladder. Again, don’t email me. “No problem,” I
ignorantly said. “Hold the ladder real tight, and I’ll pull myself up on the
roof.” I hadn’t been on a roof in decades much less hoisted myself up on one.
After I’d put my foot where words
on the stepladder read, “Do not use this step,” I thought it was somewhat
easier said than done to pull myself up, because there was nothing to hold. Somehow,
I managed to do it, and when I stood up, it was a lot higher than I
imagined it might be. I felt a little dizzy.
I inched to the chimney and tried
to take the screws off the cap. I needed a screwdriver. Jerry went to get one
and threw it on the roof. I had to crawl to retrieve it. Did I mention it was
in the nineties that day, and we have a black roof? My hands were scorched.
I removed the cap, and we thought
we’d leave it open a while for the bird to escape. Poor thing.
Now, to get down. When I peered
over the edge, the top step of that ladder was really far. I mean REALLY far.
“Just crawl backwards, swing your
rear over the edge, and I’ll put your foot on the ladder,” my beloved spouse
said.
I thought about it a minute. I
knew if my rear ever went over the edge, I was going down. It’d be like casting
out an anchor.
“No way.”
“Sure, it’ll work. Just don’t
hang on to the gutter. It might tear off.”
I didn’t especially like his priorities
in that last remark.
“I’m not doing it. There’s
nothing to hold.”
We went back and forth like that
a few minutes. The tear faucet was close to turning on. How was I going to get
off this roof?
Can you say stuck?
“Call Lilyan and get her
extension ladder.” I folded my arms tightly in front of my chest.
I guess my body language convinced
Jerry that I was firm in my resolve not to come over the edge. He made the call and went to fetch the ladder
from our neighbor.
During his absence I perched on
the roof kneeling, my hands burning to steady myself, and surveyed my
surroundings adjacent to the top of a Bradford pear. Two Downy woodpeckers flew
to a nearby branch. It seemed I could hear them mocking and laughing at the gigantic
wobbly bird on the roof. Poor thing, indeed.
Jerry came back with the ladder.
“Hold tight. I’m trusting the ladder,” I said, letting go the “swing your rear
over the edge comment” as I came down. But, what I really meant was I trusted
him not to let me fall.
Later, I had to go back up again. The bird was
still there. We tried to put a branch down the chimney so the bird could climb
out. Didn’t work.
Do you think the bird might be
all the way down in the stove,” Jerry asked.
“Trusting the ladder, again,” I
said descending.
We went inside, opened the stove
doors, the flue, and a wren streaked out.
Thankfully, we’d had the
foresight to trap the cats elsewhere, but thinking the bird went out the door,
we let them back in.
First thing Wilbur did was find the wren.
It was grab Wilbur and open the
door again. It took awhile to convince this poor feathered creature that the
open door was his pathway to freedom. He was draped in dust bunnies and cat fur
from hiding under furniture.
At last, he took to open air.
Then, I had to go back up and put
on the chimney cap. Trusting the ladder again.
So, here are the takeaways from my roof
experience:
I have a new respect for roofers.
They deserve every penny they get. I hope they wear gloves to protect their
scorching hands and don’t have any equilibrium problems.
Solomon was right. “. . . better
a nearby neighbor, than a brother far away . . . “(Proverbs 27:10). Thank you
Lilyan for the ladder.
Like the wren, sometimes we can
let fear get such a grip on us that we don’t even recognize the door to
freedom.
And that trusting the ladder
thing. I'm glad I could trust Jerry, but in an even greater way, it’s nice to know God is always holding our ladder to help and support us when we feel stuck.
But I have to tell you, if we
hear fluttering again. I am not getting on the roof.
Lucy is done with ladders.