(59) help!

I had a phobia of midnight calls. Pictures of car accident, sickness or robbery flashed.


Most frightening of all are calls for help. Now I must make myself clear that I had no special training. I am just an ordinary person who is good at listening. One night many years ago, I had a call from a neighbour. It was a strange call alright. In the first place, the caller did not really want to talk to me. He asked about inconsequential stuff and abruptly lowered his voice asking me to call "you know who" to tell her "same time old place this Sunday".

I must have been speechless for a while as he had to run a monologue of nonsense. Then I shot him a series of questions: "you guys are eloping?", "Are you kidnapping her?", " What caused this special situation?","What are you up to next?"... After satisfying myself that there was little risk of both parties getting into further trouble, I lectured him on alternative means of communication.

Finally I did make the call the next day. This time I dug more information out of her. It seemed harmless enough. Guy loves girl. Girl responded. Both sets of parents objected. Did they break up? No, the courting merely went under ground. In this case, it was not puppy love. Ten years later they brought their baby boy to visit me. So it looked like I made the right decision that night, after all.

* FoodPoisoningMicrobes.jpg from braintree.gov.uk

(6) Being considerate

We were staying at Wendy’s nice bungalow last week. This family has been a godsend to mine. Since the first week of Keziah’s Grade One, when she called up and requested to borrow Keziah’s exercise books, we have been friends.


 
Later, I stopped attending Wednesday night life group to ensure Keziah sleeps early and started to attend Wendy’s Friday night meetings. For most of the mission trips my husband and I make to India, Wendy’s family has taken care of Keziah.




 
Now that we’ve moved out of town, many return visits found them graciously hosting us. One afternoon, I went into the bathroom and found the soap dish flooded. In a moment I poured away all the water, dried the dish and left the soap to drain and dry.


That night, I made sure my husband and Keziah were aware that should the dish be tilted towards the spray of the shower head, the soap would be softened by the resultant ‘flood’. This may be a very trivial thing, yet it is definitely lacking consideration for the next person using the bathroom.

* state-flower.gif from sos.state.mn.us