This week was a pretty emotional draining week for me. Tuesday was the anniversary of my dad's passing, combined with our neighbor growing up, a close family friend passing away this week. I could not attend her funeral but I wanted to write this blog about one of my most cherished memories of Anna. In the summer of 1983 I was recovering from one of my many surgeries. I had full length casts on both of my legs for the whole summer. My parents borrowed a hospital bed and had me situated in the living room. Being in the living room allowed me to watch TV and look out the picture window to see what was happening in the world. Remember, there was no cable or internet then, so entertainment was limited when you could not play outside.

My parents arranged to have Anna (the close family friend) take care of me during the day while they were at work. Anna was 50-ish at the time. She was a regular church going lady. She originally thought that she would take this opportunity to teach me the bible while looking after me. She gave up after 3 days when I would not accept Joseph had nothing to do with Mary's pregnancy. To her credit, 3 days is still the record of someone trying to teach me the bible.

During that summer my father rigged a switch to the doorbell so I could signal if I needed something.

The next day Anna was down in the basement folding laundry when I needed help. I hit the switch that triggered the doorbell. She ran up the whole flight of stairs (25-30), ran past the living room to the other end of the house to answer the door. Nobody told her about my father's recent doorbell innovation.

This day was about to get a lot more entertaining!

She came back to the living room frustrated that she did not answer the door in time before this supposed visitor left. She said, 'David when you get older you will find it harder to run as fast as you used too'. Being disabled, I already had pretty good insight into not being able to run fast.

I waited until she made her way to the basement to resume laundry before ringing the doorbell again. Again, she ran up the whole flight of stairs, past the living room to the other end of the house to answer the door. This time I'm laughing so hard that I'm about to wet the bed...especially since the original reason why I clicked the switch was to get help with going to the washroom.

She came back to the living room out of breath. Anna said, "I bet it's that little bugger across the road that keeps ringing the doorbell and running away". I think she suspected him because he was riding his bike in his driveway at the time. I replied, "Could be."

Three times a charm!

Anna goes back down to the basement to try and finish the laundry and I ring the doorbell again. She flies up the stairs cursing. I didn't know that the lord's surname was 'Dammit'. This time she proceeded to walk out the door, across the street, and 'disciplined' the kid across the road.

Anna came back into the house to find me in tears from me laughing so hard. She noticed the switch under my pillow and clicked it. When she heard the doorbell her face was red with anger. However, she did not do anything...I was surprised.

The next day when she was helping me to the washroom she had a suspicious grin. Long story short, she had placed my urinal bottle in my dad's beer fridge that morning. It was FREEZING! I still consider myself lucky to this day that I did not get frost bite.

I always found it so ironic that such a religious lady would carry out such an act of revenge. Isn't revenge a sin?

Until next time...