I just now went downstairs to get a bottle of refreshing Diet Crack and was coming back up the corridor when I noticed a visitor walking toward me. I knew it was a visitor because he had a yellow sticker on and looked lost. Regular employees do not have yellow stickers.
He was a giant of a man, with two carpenter's pencils stuck up under the band of his ball cap, big clomping brogans, and a belly that looked like a lava flow pouring down between tightly-stretched suspenders that looked as wide as seatbelts. "Is this where you get permits?"
"No sir, that's up on second."
We walked back around to the elevators and he began to relate in that way you do with strangers about how he thought he pushed 2, but it wound up here, and how he was just trying to get some work, and you know what? It was really them that shoulda gotten the permit, because they are the owners.
Things like that. I smiled and commiserated in the way that strangers do, and as the elevator dinged, we both got on. He kept on talking.
"Just been all kinds of busy, and trying to get that all done, and the city people came and stopped me--but you know what?"
"Sir?"
"You know, I been so busy, that might just be the Lord's way of telling me to slow down some. Just wanted me to take a little rest. That's one of those invisible blessings, you know."
"Yes, sir, I suppose so."
Two. Ding. The doors slid back and I pointed down the hall to the permitting counter and as he gently swayed out of sight, all I could think was that the Lord must be telling him to take a LOT of rest. And several fried chickens.
Posted by Terry Oglesby at October 20, 2005 03:31 PM