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Article Archive |
2009
The Broom
by Jim Morris
Everything about the day spelled trouble. My boss waited until he passed out everyone else's orders first. Then he gave me mine. Seven sets of unblinking eyes stared at me as I thumbed through my work order cards. My stack was twice as tall as all of the other Gas company service technicians' stacks. I knew what was coming.
“Boss, all of these orders are for the east side of town . . . again,” I said.
Everyone burst out laughing! The east side of Fort Worth where my boss sent me was riddled with poverty, prostitution, drugs, robbery and murder. The fire department would not even venture into that part of town without an armed police escort. The Gas company could not provide us that kind of protection. “If you get beat up, robbed, shot or stabbed,” they told us, “then call us on your radio and then we can get the police to help you.” Comforting words, eh?
Everywhere my boss sent me was to entertain my peers, I thought. Or else, it was to give them relief that “preacher boy” was taking their places in misery. Either way, orders were orders. They had to be done by someone. That someone just happened to be me.
Everything went as expected until the end of the day. I had one more order at a slum lord's quadra-plex (a four unit building). The gas meter itself was buried in a concrete vault in the ground near the street. I got my shovel out and cleared away all of the needle syringes left lying around by passing drug users and began to dig out the gas meter.
“Mister Gasman!” yelled an elderly lady. “You've got to help me. It's an emergency!”
Every thought that went through my head said that this was trouble. Nevertheless, I stopped what I was doing, called my dispatcher, and walked to the next shack where she lived. As she led me through her apartment I could smell a strong odor of gas but it barely registered on my electronic gas sniffer.
“Ma'am, it smells like you have a gas leak.” She then showed me her old water heater. I covered its fittings with a soapy water solution. Gas was leaking from several places. I turned off the valve leading to the water heater to make it “safe.” I finished up my leak investigation and told her the results. “Ma'am, you have a water heater damaged beyond repair. Your landlord needs to replace it. I must leave it off but you are safe now.”
“You better turn that water heater back on!” she yelled. Then she grabbed up a broom and chased me out of her house! I told her the truth and she gave me “the broom.”
Jesus reasoned with the Jews once, saying, “Yet because I tell you the truth, you do not believe me! Can any of you prove me guilty of sin? If I am telling you the truth, why don't you believe me?” (John 8:45-46).
01-21-09
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