Gebrüder Thonet, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
By Bill Stokes
Kickass, the doorstop dog, reports the keeper’s involvement in one of those incidents that demonstrates why women live longer than men. The keeper is in the Vista West woodworking shop varnishing shelving that he cannot reach the top of so he lines up three folding chairs beside the workbench and manages to climb up to stand on one of the chairs which puts him in an absurdly precarious position; but he proceeds with the varnishing until, without warning, the lights go off. There are no windows in the shop and when the lights go off it is completely dark.
So the keeper is now foolishly standing on a folding chair and it is pitch dark and he tries to wave his arm to indicate to the automatic lights that they need to turn back on.
Nothing!
The shop is isolated in a basement corner so there is no point in yelling for help.
Using the power of groping, the keeper finally managed to feel his way so he could hang onto the freshly varnished shelf and get one foot back on the floor and step off the chair, at which point the lights came back on.
A man older than Willie Nelson should not ever be standing on a folding chair in pitch dark room holding a can of varnish and a paintbrush and wondering just how the hell he is going to get back down onto the floor without suffering serious calamity?
The keeper vows to Phyllis that such foolishness will never happen to him again.
She seems skeptical.
