When You Help, it Doesn’t Help

Ruth and I were on a NOMADS work project in Tucson, AZ. NOMADS are Methodist old goats with motorhomes or campers who work on deserving projects.

One of the jobs was to remodel an apartment for a veteran. We were putting in a new kitchen and needed to see what plumbing issues might be under the floor. Being the skinny guy, I said, “I will go under, and rap on the floor when I am in place.”

Folks liked the idea, so I crawled down the access and scooched across the building. I could hear talking, and I tapped on the floor and stringers. Nothing. I hammered, but with the demolition work, no one heard me. I tried yelling during quiet times to no avail.

After fifteen minutes, I crawled back to the access. No one noticed me poking my head up, so I got out, dusted off, and asked, “Hey, did you guys forget about me?”

There were sheepish grins and someone said, “Oh, we wondered where you went.”

We staged a picture of me crawling out to “preserve the moment in pichers.” After all, we were in Arizona.