MORE SUMMER HEAT... lots of it (Part 162t)

MORE SUMMER HEAT… lots of it (Part 162t)

Trying to be productive while waiting I made a few phone calls. I tried to reach Donald, the guy who supposedly owned the house next door, but had to leave a message. With it I felt I’d met my pledge to give him what he’d asked for. Another call was to Cliffy about weather the crew was going to meet at the shop that night. He said Dick and Alan were going to be there but but it wasn’t necessary for me to come. Since we hadn’t raced on Saturday night there was nothing to do but load the car and that he’d pick me up on Saturday afternoon. That was good news as it would give me more time with Elle and the kids. The last call was to Betsy at the branch. As of the close of business that day the new account campaign/gift giveaway was over and I needed a final tally. I also needed an audit of the remaining gifts and asked her to do it for me. There was a hesitation in her voice after I did so asked what was wrong. I had to keep from laughing out loud at her answer… “Mice… in the storage trailer”. She went on to say that after that discovery they’d asked Jerry to go out to the trailer to replenish the gifts. After she told me that there was another hesitation. To prod her along I said” And?…..” with a questioning tone to my voice. I could tell she was hemming and hawing a bit so, now a little frustrated with how long a simple answer was taking, I became a little more demanding when I asked why it was so hard to give me an answer. Finally she told me Jerry told her he had a leg injury and going up and down the steps to the unit were “too difficult”. Hearing that I told her to put Jerry on the phone.

I avoided as much contact with him, in person and over the phone, as I could manage knowing I was likely to ‘blow my stack’ at him and end up in trouble for it. However, in this case I wanted to hear, in his own words, why he couldn’t do a simple job like going up and down five steps to retrieve some of the gifts, none of which weighed more than a pound. I’m not sure it would’ve made much difference if he’d come to phone right away or not but when he did I ordered him to go out to the storage and to give me a count on how many of each gift was left… and I’d stay on the phone waiting for the results. It took a few seconds before I heard a wimpy voice tell me he couldn’t because he’d hurt his leg. The “g” in leg was still ringing in my ear when I screamed into the phone that if he was well enough to make it in to work he was well enough to make it out to the trailer to get me what I wanted. When I didn’t hear a response I screamed into the phone again… “DO YOU READ ME?”

I had to wait about 20 minutes for him to get back. In a very weak voice he gave me the numbers for each product and, as calmly as I could, told him “Thank you…” and hung up. I then called back immediately and asked for Betsy. I asked if she’d observed Jerry when he went to do the inventory. Again, just as before, a hesitation before answering. At that point I didn’t know what was going on and demand to know. I could hear a change in the tone of her voice when she told me that Jerry had persuaded Mae to go into the trailer do the count. Thankfully, I didn’t react to that bit of news but took a different tack which caught her off guard. I asked if she’d observed Jerry walking with a limp at any time in the past week. There was no hesitation when she answered “No sir..” Then I thanked her and hung up. My next step was to document the conversations in my journal about the failings of Jerry.

So caught up in that little scene I ended up losing track of the time. I looked up and saw it was well after 4:30pm and was sure the mortgage review part of the meeting would’ve been over by then. I had no idea how the other part of the meeting that Gee had called would play out. I didn’t see Trish so asked Bret where she was. I wanted to make sure she was at or around her desk when Hobie returned fully expecting him to break the good news to her. He said he didn’t know but that Lena, the president’s secretary had called for her to go upstairs. We then chatted about what we expected to see from Trish in the way of emotion when she was told. She was always very ‘businesslike’ and professional and only occasionally would let out a spontaneous laugh. That was as much emotion as we’d see. All we could do was to wait. We watched most of the employees leave at 5pm and I, inwardly, was a little concerned. To me it was a very simple and straight forward request to the salary committee and shouldn’t need a lot of debate. But then, it was a group of the Trustees who had to decide and they, as has been written about any number of times in this blog, could screw up the simplest of things.

It was Bret and I who got the real surprise. We’d been talking at my desk and from there we couldn’t see the stairs to the second floor. All of a sudden Trish appeared with the biggest smile I’d ever seen on her face. Bret was standing and Trish ran up, threw her arms around him and kept repeating “Thank you! Thank you!”. Then, more as an afterthought, she looked at me and repeated the words again. That surely told us she knew. I was the one to ask how she found out and almost couldn’t believe it when she told us that she’d been called into the Board room. She went on that Hobie introduced her to the group. It was rewarding to see her smiling as she told us about the experience. It was Bret who asked if anything was mentioned about Joanie and that sort of wiped the smile from her face as she asked what Bret meant. I quickly realized that all she’d been told was about her status change so I told her. I stressed that she couldn’t say anything until Hobie made the announcement. I was pretty sure she wasn’t cognizant of the situation with J J and left it that way stressing how excited Bret and I were about her promotion. Luckily, she was too excited about that to ask any more about Joanie. It was a quick and happy trip home.

Elle was still in her very good mood when I arrived back home. It usually went that way… anytime Elle got something she really wanted and didn’t expect to get it and I wanted to take advantage of it. However, Wednesday evenings was when some of the regular racing skippers would work with the ladies who were attempting to race trying to ‘get them up to speed’ and Elle wanted, very much to be a part of it. I’d not been to any of the sessions because of working on the race car and Elle thought it would be nice of me to accompany her. NOT what I’d had in mind upon my arrival home. So as not to lose her positive mindset I agreed to go.

Of the women who were there maybe two or three of them were mildly attractive. As I’ve previously written, it was suggested that women wear shorts while sailing a Sunfish and to my delight a few didn’t wear them over a bathing suit thus giving me something to look forward to as the evening progressed. While helping rig one of the boats I was approached by a woman that looked vaguely familiar. Before I could speak she spoke asking if I remembered her. Somewhat embarrassed, I said “No…” and she introduced herself as Ed’s wife and Edna’s mother. Then it came back to me. I’d been helping her husband work on his boat during the weekend storm and she’d brought some ‘goodies’ to the barn for us. She’d been wearing an oversized yellow rain slicker and her hair had been all wet and straggly. But, seeing her face to face my thoughts went right to the fact that I’d left their barn that day with two pair of her panties. I could feel the temperature rise in my cheeks as the guilt seeped in.

To be continued…