The guy who came to take out our asbestos pipe was a wealth of random information and stories. Bob – and that is not his real name – chatted with me while his minions did the work. In the course of an hour, he told me a dozen different stories – and never finished a single one. He’s got ‘squirrel’ worse than me.
He started by asking about our dog. Turns out, Bob had a dog that just died. You see, he’d found his dog – we’ll call him Fido – lethargic and sickly under a tree so he took sixteen year old Fido to the vet and the vet suggested he put him down but Bob didn’t want to. So he took Fido – home, made Fido some food and added hot water for gravy and Fido ate a little bit and perked up. But the next day, Fido was not looking so great so, Bob loaded him into his truck to take him to another vet for a second opinion but on the way there, he noticed Fido taking these big slow breaths so Bob pulled over to the side of the road. He walked back to the bed of the pick up truck and saw that Fido’s eyes were glassy and then Fido took one big breath and he passed. So Bob took Fido home to give him a funeral. He was going to put him in the box that his five-month-old grandson’s coffin came in… They lost the grand-baby last year. Bob had to pay extra and special order the coffin because apparently if you want a coffin for a baby that small, they give you a cooler. And then the funeral home wanted $250 dollars to pick up the coffin at the airport, which Bob thought was ridiculous so he and his wife drove down and picked it up. He’s been married for 35 years and he loves her. She is his life. Last month his wife came with him for his colonoscopy to keep him company. She is only 50 years old but she has three grandparents that passed from colon cancer so Bob and the doctors talked her into getting one of her own. The next week she was in surgery where she had a third of her bowl removed because they found stage 3 Cancer and she is now having chemo… And last week, while she was getting her chemo, his daddy called. He has dementia and Alzheimer’s but is still driving and called Bob because he was lost. Luckily he was lost right near the hospital his wife was having her chemo so Bob met him to escort him home. He pulled up beside his daddy's pick up and waved for him to follow him. And his daddy did - right through a stop sign where he T-boned a car. When Bob asked him what happened, why his daddy didn’t stop, his daddy confessed it was the second accident he’d gotten into that day. Apparently he had pulled into a parking space that already had a car in it…. Bob is real close to his daddy. He grew up poor and his daddy would go off and work in Chicago where the ‘big money’ is made and Bob and his five brothers and sisters lived in a tiny shack with their mom where the weekly bath was in a creek no matter the weather and he shared a bed with his two brothers while his mother and sisters shared the other bed. But they learned a lot of things like hunting and fishing and how to have fun without toys. Unlike the kids today with their toys and their TV and video games…. His daughter bought his 5yr old grandson a dirt bike, the kind with the motor and he was out at the track the second week he had it and took a jump but crashed. Then the grand son sat up, dazed and promptly got hit in the head by not one but two road bikes driven by teens racing. The first bike’s tire knocked him down and the second bike’s frame caught his head and spun him in circles. The ambulance took 45 minutes to get there but Bob has life flight insurance and he was upset they didn’t use it to take the grandson to the hospital… He’s used life flight twice, once when he cut off his foot and the other time when one of his daughters got hit by a drunk driver and left for dead in a ditch. The drunk guy had apparently asked her out and she said no so he followed her as she walked home and hit her with his car and broke her neck. Bob used the life flight then to get her to the hospital where they found one of her vertebra was broken and had turned around but luckily had not sliced her spinal cord… There was more. Lots more. The funny thing is, in the hour of talking, not once did Bob finish a story. I have no idea what happened to his daughter or his grandson? Is he going to take his daddy’s keys away? Did anyone get hurt in the T-boned car? How did the 5-month-old die? How did he cut off his foot? And how much is gone? He said he feels the quick of the toenail but has no toes but how much of the foot is left? He also said he walked up hill to get help after he cut off the foot and it was the second worst pain he’d ever felt – but never said what was the first worst pain… So many questions and no more asbestos pipes to remove. I wonder if Bob installs kitchens….
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AuthorMy name is ej. I'm a girl. I say that because with the short hair and the short initials, folks aren't always sure. More brilliant insights to who I am in About me Archives
April 2019
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