Friday, October 16, 2015

Mister Caven Climbed Up On The Roof

I do wonder what our neighbors must think. Not the ones around my house, but the ones around my school. It is not a regular occurrence, but it happens often enough that one might wonder, "What is he doing?"
I'm climbing up on the roof. I go up there to retrieve errant balls and Frisbees and the like. I go up there to get things down that shouldn't be up there. It would be great to say that every trip up there has a specific purpose and I only put myself at risk when I absolutely have to, but that definition gets stretched at times. Should I have to climb on the roof to bring down a soccer ball that some kid booted up there because he or she decided that they wanted to see if they could get a soccer ball up on the roof? My initial responses would be, in no particular order:
"Looks like we go without soccer for a little while."
"Sorry about that. Maybe you can bring a soccer ball from home?"
"Maybe you would like to figure out a way to get the ball down?"
"Sounds like Buildings and Grounds needs to come out and raise the sidewalk or lower the roof."
"Isn't there someone else that could do that?"
The answer to that last one is "yes." There are plenty of grown-ups who are perfectly capable of clambering up the ladder we have and walking across the very limited slope of our main building's lid. I just happen to be the guy to whom the casual part of business casual means that I am willing to crawl around, fishing various bits of sports equipment out of drains. And then there's the shoes.
A number of times in the past few years, the call has been made to Mister Caven: "Can you please come and get Timmy's shoe off the roof?"
Of course I can, but I am even more puzzled than I am with the occasional errant soccer ball or hula hoop. Why is that shoe on the roof?
I have learned that it is better not to spend a lot of time puzzling about the why and how and to focus on the business at hand: Shoe Rescue. Parents and kids both seem alternately gleeful and embarrasses to have this kind of attention spread their way. It would be so much easier, at some point, to simply let the winds of time eventually wear the discarded footwear into dust, or by chance to have it blown fatefully into the waiting arms of some benevolent stranger.
That doesn't happen. Parents spend enough on their kids' shoes that waiting for any sort of weather event is intolerable, and so they come looking for me. It's nice up there, by the way. The view is pleasant and the ambient sounds of education are just a dull hum from high in the sky. Someday, I might stay there.
For a day or two. There's still so much left to do back on the ground.

1 comment:

Kristen Caven said...

Really? As in, "did you REALLY have to title it like that?"