Walking up the street toward Dupont I saw a man sighing as he fidgeted with a ladder that was leaning against a house. He kept taking a step back and looking up at. It was a slippery, icy, might be raining or it might be snowing kind of day, and the ladder he kept sighing at stretched all the way to the top of a three story home. He had Christmas light near his feet and his eyes had a look of doomed reluctance to them.
I paused, and looking at the arrangement he had in front of him asked if him if he really had the stomach for the task at hand.
“I guess so,” he answered very meekly, adding, “ though I REALLY don’t like the idea.”
It looked like a horrifying and dangerous challenge to me and I said, “Well, this might one be an opportunity you want to postpone for just a little bit, then.”
He sighed again and gave me a look that suggested I didn’t understand. It was at this moment, just as I shrugged and started to head away, that I saw a very sturdy, I-can-build-a-campfire-out-of-you kind of woman sitting on the front steps. She was wearing a lumberjacket and untangling an infinity of lights, “It won’t take any time at all!” she shouted at the man while staring at me.
I went quiet and continued on my journey.
About twenty minutes later I passed back that way and the light-erection team was still there. The man still stood at the base of the ladder, looking sad and defeated, but the woman was beside him now. In complete control, she confidently explained to him exactly how to use a ladder, employing expressions like, “point of contact” and “weight distribution.” She imparted her knowledge and strode away with a sincerely happy grin on her face, “ Goddamn it, Anthony, she shouted back at him, “ it’s Christmas, show some fucking balls!”