This Week's Humor

We have a number of relatively young retired men who find excuses to stop by the church several times a week. Sometimes they are there to do some work on the building, other times they just want to talk. They are all on the property committee, and they love coming over to fix things. One is a short, round little man with a bit of a lisp. He is a genuinely nice guy, and has a real sense of ownership of the building. He was a charter member of the church, and served on both building committees. He lives close to the church, so he's the one who gets the calls when the alarm goes off in the middle of the night. He's the one who meets the plumbing and heating guy who comes out to solve the furnace problems. He's the one who gets the exterminator to come earlier in the month when I see a mouse.

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One day this week I heard his voice, and when I wandered back into Administrative Assistant's office I mentioned I'd heard him. She said, "Yes, he's working on filling the holes in the cedar siding on the pole that the woodpecker made." The woodpecker has been a source of great frustration to the property committee. One of the members bought new wood and carefully stained it and mounted it on that post. Within a week, his friend the woodpecker had marked it with a large hole sure to attract attention. We pondered the men's battle with the woodpecker for a moment, and then AA added, "He's trying to impress the females." I looked at her, and then realized she was talking about the woodpecker, not the man. I told her my mistake, and we both laughed, and then laughed some more. For some reason, the thought of our short, round little man trying to impress females was funny.

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Friday the key to lock the door Daughter's program is using vanished from the time I put it back up over the door to the time they needed it to lock the door when they were leaving. We looked, tried other keys, and tried allen wrenches. Nothing was working. We thought we were getting it to turn, but it wasn't locking. The lock has been rather finicky lately. Anyway, we called our short, round little man to come solve the problem. We knew his progressive dinner with 3 other couples (there were 4, but one couple moved) that they've been doing for 35 years was that evening and that he and his wife were hosting the appetizers. We also know that he does all the cooking at his house. I wasn't thrilled about having to call him, but we know he's always thrilled to get these calls.

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So, I called him. He was over very quickly, armed with spray lubricant and allen wrenches. He had the door locked in no time, and is looking forward to getting us a new key and hanging it near the door with some large object attached that will keep it from getting lost. The staff member from the program commented that men like doing stuff like that. Administrative Assistant and I looked at each other and began to laugh....

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Oh, and he was already for his guests, who were arriving shortly. The appetizers were arranged on plates wrapped and waiting on the back porch. The candles were lit, so the house would smell like evergreen when they arrived. Their dinner would take close to 8 hours. There are many ways to impress females. I hope he had a good evening. I'm sure I'll hear about it next week.