One of my newest activities now as a SAHM is to join my two retired male neighbors for chats. My next door neighbor, Chuck, is a retired fire fighter who cooks and cleans while his wife works. My neighbor directly across from him, Sid, is a retired police officer who recently lost his wife to cancer. Both men like to sit in the mouth of Chuck's garage, smoke, talk and drink; coffee in the morning, liquor in the evening. Chuck's side of the garage has folding chairs, a refrigerator, ashtrays, and a garbage can. His wife parks her car on the other side.
I usually join the two when I head out to walk the dog or head home from walking the dog. Sometimes I stand, but recently I've taken to sitting with them and helping to solve the world's problems. We talk about what is happening in the neighborhood and catch up on who knows what about which neighbor. We tell stories from our past and discuss current events we read in the newspaper. Elliot joins us and sits out under the shade of our tree enjoying the cool breezes that come his way. Sometimes other neighbors out for a walk or other retired firefighters join us.
Today's conversation ran the gamut from the neighborhood doings to pink chairs. I then mentioned how interesting it is how conversations drift from one subject to another without meaning to; that one thing leads into another thing and before you know it you have talked about all kinds of crazy things you never meant to discuss. Both men said this was something that only happened to women, and of course I pointed out to them our following conversation....and then got blamed for the path of it:
I was giving the men an update on my next door neighbor who had recently been released from the hospital. I told them how he needed his lawn mowed and how my friend Kelly offered to do this for him; how the neighbor insisted on paying her; and how she finally took his money and explained to him she would use it for her upcoming mission to Guatemala. Sid wanted to know why she was going to Guatemala, and I explained about Kelly joining a group from her church to help out orphans.
Chuck: "I knew a guy once who owned a pizza place down on Starkey. He was very religious. Had pamphlets on the tables and signs in his window. He got involved in going on missions to Honduras and Belize, and he always had buckets out to raise money for his trips and for building homes and churches in these countries. He would go three or four times a year. He got really involved in building something in Honduras and he went around hitting up businesses and people for about half a year. Then one day he took all the donations and cleaned out his business account and took off to Honduras where he married a local women. Left his wife and kids back here to run the pizza business with an empty account." He took a drink of his coffee. "Praise the Lord!"
We laughed, and then just in case they were willing to open their pockets toward Kelly's mission, I told them she didn't have a wife or kids and she didn't own a pizza place either. Neither one offered up any dough, but Sid seemed interested in what she would be doing once she got to Honduras so I explained as best as I knew telling him I had visited the website. This led into doing good deeds for others, and then I said I always wondered if there was danger involved would I still help someone out. I then launched into a local story about a family who had been driving to Tampa several years ago and drove their van off the bridge. I happened to be coming back from Tampa after dropping off Kelly at the train station and came across the scene after it had happened. I was on the opposite side of the road and had no idea what had happened until later when I heard it on the news, but at the time I passed by there were helicopters and coast guard boats in the water.
Me: "And a man teaching his 16 year old daughter how to drive stopped and jumped off the side of the bridge. The husband and wife and one kid got loose, but the man had to go under and break through a window to get out the other boy. He saved his life."
Sid: "How easy is it to break out a window?"
Chuck: "It isn't really that easy."
Me: "When I first learned lifeguard training there was a section on how to free yourself from a submerged car. I thought it was a silly thing to learn at the time being I lived in Indiana, but now I think about it all the time when I drive over the water."
Sid: "I would just roll down the window."
Chuck: "Most cars today have power windows."
Me: "They all have electric windows. I always think that if I go over the side for some reason should I power down the windows as I'm flying through the air?"
Chuck: "Yes, and call and cancel your dinner reservations while you're at it, cuz chances are you aren't going to make it there on time."
Me: "You know you are a real hoot this morning Chuck. About as funny as that coffee cup. Where did you get that thing?"
Chuck: "The fire station."
Sid: "The station? It looks like a kid's drawing."
Chuck: "It is. The fire contest for schools they have every year."
Me: "Madison won third place in that one year. I gave her the idea for the contest, but she drew it."
Silence
Me: "Aren't you going to ask me what the theme was?"
Sid: "No."
Me: "Well, I'm going to tell you. I had her draw a person pulling a pizza box out of the stove and it is on fire and a person behind says, "I think you are suppose to remove the pizza from the box before you put it in the oven."
Sid: "It says that right there on the pizza box!"
Me: "It was for a contest. I got the idea from a story Tom always tells about the time he did that in college. He tells that story along with one about heating oil on the stove and it catching on fire."
Sid: "Why was he heating oil?"
Me: "I don't know, but the thing caught on fire and they didn't know what to do so Tom picked up the pan and carried it on fire through the apartment and dumped it outside in the snow. He burned the whole top of the ceiling through the apartment as he walked."
Sid: "See that wouldn't have happened to me because I'm not as tall as Tom."
Me: "True."
Sid: "If I were as tall as Tom I could hang up the shutter that just fell off my house yesterday."
Me: "Oh, my gosh, are you kidding? You're shutter fell off?"
Sid: "Yep. The piece of wood is still attached to the back of it."
Me: "Can you put it back on?"
Sid: "Sure, but that entails getting out the ladder and climbing up and it's too cold today to do that."
Chuck: "It started getting cold this morning when I was out."
Me: "Nice weather to sit here. Won't be long before it will be too hot to do this."
Chuck: "What did you do with your recliner?"
Me: "It is still sitting in the garage. Why? Do you want it? I offered it to you before. Now you want it?"
Chuck: "Well, we cleaned out the other bedroom this weekend and I was thinking. I have some speakers and a TV and I was thinking with the recliner I could have a man cave."
Me: "A man cave with a pink recliner. I love it!"
Chuck: "Aw! I forgot it was pink until you said that. I can't have a pink chair in the man cave."
Me: "Why not? I have two of them. One for each of you."
Sid: "But then where would you sit?"
Me: "I'll just have you come over to my Steelers room when you need me for the conversation."
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