Cardinal Meadows. Episode 9

"... but judging by the empties on the chair behind him, loved boxes of Twinkies washed down with gallons of cola."

Psalm 115:6 They have ears, but cannot hear, noses, but cannot smell.

The frenzy of first two days quickly morphed into two hurried weeks most of which involved thoroughly cleaning and decontaminating the house. In addition to being fortunate enough to have discovered them, I cleaned and polished the beautiful oak floors. Most of the indoor electrical wiring and major plumbing seemed to have remained unmolested, but outdoors was another thing altogether. The electrical service and copper wiring from the power pole to the house had completely vanished. Apparently Spooner was right. The high price of scrap, namely copper, was a great temptation and more than thieves could resist. My only solace was that with the fair weather of early summer, I could continue to camp out in the front yard and still work on the inside of the house.

I'd finally managed to get into the city to open a checking account and to buy necessities, but it soon became apparent that my paltry savings would not allow for any extras- whatsoever. Still, I was fortunate that my house payment and property taxes came out to less than five hundred dollars a month, and with no utility bills, I could spend all my time for 'at least a few months' doing manual labor around the place. I was also fortunate that my mother had insisted I haul my deceased father's overstuffed tool boxes with me. She warned me that they themselves had discovered that real estate listings were more fluff than the fact.

“Listen, son,” she had said, “no matter what anyone tells you, there will be things that will need fixing.”

I’d fought her about it, at first, not wanting to add a couple hundred pounds to the growing assortment of items I was cramming into my overstuffed car, but now I was sincerely thankful that she had cajoled me into submission.

Unlike me, my father was a very handy person. I wanted to learn from him, but he had a short fuse, became easily frustrated and distracted, and would often retreat into his own little world in the garage, unable to muster the time and patience to teach me about the electrical or woodworking skills he was so proficient in. His nervousness around children probably explained why they stopped having more kids. Though I still had a lot to learn about fixing and maintaining a home, my father did leave me with something without which I would have never even made the attempt: his tools. Now, I too could look forward to the day when I could do work around my own home to provide for my own family. At this point in my life the thought of taking care of others was ludicrous, but the desire remained just the same.

Spooner, it turned out, was a great neighbor and friend, and even with his habit of taking two days off for every one day worked, I had little to complain about. He would not be swayed from his promise, and worked long days alongside me for the sake of friendship and of course a sixer of nice German lager. Even on his off days, he managed to walk across the road to give the rookie some advice, as I was seriously in over my head.

I was glad that Spooner didn’t want to work, today. I’d been so focused on the clean-up that, I was getting a little out of sync and needed to stretch my psyche a little. Since it was Sunday, I decided to take the day off. I was out of clean clothes and went into the city to find a church and a Laundromat. My church attendance had been seriously hit- and-miss, so it came as no surprise that the uneasiness I felt was due in part that something much bigger was missing, something spiritual. I stopped in at the trading post hoping to see Cindy and maybe ask a few questions about her bumper sticker, “New Hope Church.” She wasn’t in.

“She comes in later. She’s closing today,” said Wayne, the man behind the counter who seemed distracted by something that had dripped from his mouth onto a severely stretched out rock and roll tee shirt. By the looks of it, he had long ago conceded defeat in the battle of keeping up appearances. He apparently shunned haircuts, but judging by the empties on the chair behind him, loved boxes of Twinkies washed down with gallons of cola.

“So, she works different hours?”

“Yeah, she rodeos, so she’s not always here.”

I was plowing for information, so took it to the next level. “Doesn’t she go to church somewhere around here?”

“It’s a shame, ain’t it. She just joined up.”

“What do you mean?”

“Joined up, you know, she’s now officially one of those creepy Jesus wack-jobs. What a waste.”

I chose not to start a debate and instead heeded the verse “cast not your pearls before swine.” However, he did confirm the fact that she was attending New Hope Church down in the city.

I drove as fast as I could, but by the time I arrived, the parking lot of the church was deserted. I should have started earlier. I still had my laundry to do and as luck would have it, a passerby gave me directions to a Laundromat. Sunday, it seems, was their busiest day of the week. When I arrived, there were several people waiting in line with bags and baskets of clothes to wash. Great! I’d be spending the rest of the day in line with these folks just for a chance to get at an open machine. That was until I noticed a super-sized front loading washing machine. Fantastic, I thought. For five bucks I could do all my laundry at once.

I patted myself on the back for outthinking the other people standing in line. Several of them stared at me quizzically. Herd mentality, I thought. You never get anywhere in life standing in line. I was using my brains and doing so had outsmarted the crowd. Heck, I didn’t even have to wait in the humid heat and noise. I was parked just outside, and from the comfort of my car, I was able to sip a nice cold drink and through the window watch my clothes swirl in the large machine. I tuned in to a Sunday afternoon sermon until the machine stopped.

I got a laundry cart and started to remove my laundry from the washer and immediately noticed something wasn’t right. There was a strong odor coming from the machine. It had the heavy smell of a dog- a stinky wet dog. I bent down and sniffed my clothes. It was even worse; my clothes where infused with it. They stank to high heaven. Some idiot had apparently washed a doggy bed in the machine right before I’d used it. I quickly walked to the attendant’s window to exact my pound of flesh.

“Look what your machine did! My clothes are ruined! I’ll probably never get the smell out. So, what are you going to do about it?!”

The attendant followed me to the washer. I continued, “And by the way, you’ll need to replace the tokens I used.”

The attendant looked at me. “This machine? You used this machine?”

“Of course I used this machine, open your eyes, can’t you see? My clothes are still in there!”

He shook his head. “Uh, nope, sorry, I can’t help you.”

“What do you mean you can’t help me!?”

The attendant bent down and picked up a piece of paper off the floor. He turned the paper around and handed it to me. It read, “Out of Service for cleaning.”

“But… but… it wasn’t on the machine when I loaded it!”

“Not my problem.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Did you see anyone else using it?”

“No.”

“That should have been your first clue. We did what we are required to do. Sorry, it’s out of my hands.”

“Okay then, I guess I can see your point, but what about my tokens? Could you at least replace them, so I can rewash my clothes?”

The attendant bent down and sniffed my clothes and quickly rose to his feet. “Are you kidding? These stink! Why would we let you ruin some more of our machines with this garbage? Get them out of here!” He turned and walked away.

All conversation in the laundry mat had stopped. Several people still waiting to use machines stood there smirking until one lady burst out laughing and then so did several others. My face grew hot. I must have turned seven shades of red. I grabbed one armful at a time of the wet stinking clothes and threw them into the back seat of my car.

I tore out of the parking lot, mad and humiliated. I had to stop to roll down the windows. The odor was overwhelming and foul, but not as foul as my mood. A half hour passed, and now, as I drove down into the valley, one of the many Bible verses I’d memorized as a young man popped into my head from Ecclesiastes: "Be not hasty in thy spirit to be angry: for anger resteth in the bosom of fools."

I knew immediately that I hadn’t just remembered the verse by accident. God was talking. I’d allowed years of disappointment to fester into a bad, prideful attitude and self-indulgent anger. It took leaving my comfort zone to see just how bad it had gotten. I’d gotten used to blaming God for everything that had gone wrong in my life, and then started telling Him what I thought He needed to do. I guess He already knew, and today, He was doing it.