October 14, 2020

18 days till National Vocation Awareness Week

#7 in a series of 25

The Garage Door

During my canonical year, that streak of fun came out in me and I couldn’t help myself.  I had tasks that required me to go between the men’s shop and the garage.  There was a garage door opener in the men’s shop and I often had it in my apron as I took wood back and forth.  One day, one of the elderly sisters was standing near the garage door and I showed her how I could kick the drainpipe and the garage door would go up.  Actually, I was clicking the clicker in my pocket.  She was thoroughly amazed.  After I had my fun, I went on my way just as one of the more boisterous Sisters drove up to the garage.  Sister Thomas called me back to show Sister Elma what I could do.  I was all too happy to go back and do it again.  I kicked on the drainpipe and up went the garage door.  Kicked it again and down it went.  Again, thoroughly incredulous at this demonstration. 

About that time the men came out of the shop and Sr. Elma motioned them over.  She encouraged me to show them what I could do.  I kicked the drainpipe and up went the door.  The head of maintenance kicked it and down it went.  He kicked it again up it went, kicked it again started to go down then overheated.   Then he kicked in between all of the garage doors (6) to see if there were any similar issues.  Then he started talking jack hammer to open up the area behind the drainpipe to see what was going on.  Uh oh…I waited till everyone left then I went out to the shop and told Dave I had the clicker in my pocket and was fooling the Sisters.  He hung his head, didn’t have to say a thing, and I felt bad I had sort of humiliated him.

OK time to self-report.  I went to Sr. Fidelis and told her what I had done.   She of course laughed and enjoyed the story and told me not to worry about it.  Whew!  The story made the rounds.  About two weeks later, one of the Sisters was seen kicking the drainpipe trying to get into the garage.  Sr. Thomas saw this happen and told me about it.  Sister Dismaria had been watching from second floor of the convent out the window and surmised the garage door would go up if you kicked the drainpipe.  She did not hear the rest of the story and figured it would not have been fixed yet.  She just couldn’t seem to find the right place to kick!