Soon, I was immersed in all things "neighbor-notification" and I wasn't paying too much attention to the fact that my silence had been broken with the sound of the door opening and slamming closed a few times. At the fourth slamming, I noticed Henry come in the kitchen to retrieve the broom. A highly suspect activity since the only time Henry uses a broom is when I am standing over him forcibly making him sweep up some mess or other he has created. Still, I thought to myself - ooooh! Maybe he's going to sweep the front porch! I briefly considered telling him to go and get the "outside broom" from downstairs, but then I thought, "What a sweet kid to just up and sweep the porch of his own accord?" so I let it go.
Slam number five indicated Henry's arrival back in the house about three minutes later. I was again optimistic that perhaps he was just back fetching the dustpan. You know - - any job worth doing is worth doing well and all that? But, instead, he reached for the mop. Hmmm. I was damn sure he wasn't going to swab the sidewalk - - so my curiosity was peaked. I had to get up and check it out.
Alas, I should have gotten up two slams earlier. I arrived on the front porch to find not only the football stuck in our holly tree (which was oddly trimmed to resemble the kind of tree you might see on the cover of a Candyland in previous efforts to "market" the house prior to the sale) - but my "inside" broom was unceremoneously sticking out of the top of the tree where it had been sent as a projectile to try to unjam the ball. All three boys were noodling to think of the next best thing to throw at both the broom and the ball. Hence, the mop. So, before they were able to sacrifice yet another household cleaning implement to the stuff-eating-holly-tree. I gently suggested a ladder might be helpful here.
George the Elder was first up. There is no photo of this, as George the Elder is not a big fan of heights. I had to stay and spot him. This doesn't make much sense since logically, if he was to fall off the 10 foot ladder, there are only two not-so-good outcomes. One, my flight/fight response would kick in and I would impulsively step out of the way to avoid being crushed by the big thing that was falling out of the sky - OR two, I would try to catch my husband as he plummeted to the ground. The first would result in only one person having to visit the emergency room. The second option likely would have rendered us both needing an EMT and left without anyone to drive us there. As fate would have it, he didn't fall and was able to retrieve the broom.
Without a whole lot of urging or convincing, George the Elder stepped down from the ladder of doom and allowed George the Younger to take over. Luckily, after several good "pokes" with the broom - and some directional advice from Henry who stood on the porch and yelled LEFT LEFT when George the Younger should have been going RIGHT RIGHT until I figured out that the whole mirror image thing needed some coaching - the ball popped out and the day was saved.
I never did get the chance to finish the HOA stuff. After the excitement of using the ladder - Henry decided that he was done with football. Oh well, I got a good 30 minutes in before the extraction was necessary.
1 comment:
BOYS....Can't live with them and you can not sell them on E-Bay....Glad no one plummeted to their death and the broom was salvaged. :)
Post a Comment