Lesson One: “Stupid Ladder!”

             Jon E. Mopp wasn’t the brightest custodian to ever walk the face of the earth.  He did his job okay, and everybody liked him, but when it came to the more refined things, the common sense needs of custodial work, well, that’s where he tended to lack.  Jon’s thinking ability just didn’t seem to quite stay up with the “real time” aspects of his job.  Maybe it was because as a child, his mother had found him sitting in the bathroom drinking a cup of cleanser.  Or perhaps it was the time he fell out of his Uncle’s truck while trying to stand up in the back just as it shifted into third gear.  Whatever the reason, Jon’s senses were dulled, much like a worn down pencil.  For some reason, Jon had never found the pencil sharpener of life.

            On one particularly chilly winter day, Jon noticed a gutter overflowing with leaves on one side of the school he worked at.  He decided that the leaves needed to be removed so that proper drainage could occur.  Haphazardly making his way up the ice-covered slope next to the building, he headed for the storage area to retrieve a ladder.  Jon, being the wise and intelligent person that he was, decided it would be best to get a smaller ladder, something easy to carry on the icy path. 

            Picking up the ladder from the storage area, he swung around to leave.  Oblivious to his surroundings, Jon’s ladder bumped into a box of fluorescent light bulbs sitting on the shelf.  The box slid, but not quite far enough to fall off.  It hung over the edge like a triangular paper football might in a game of table football between two friends.  Jon walked out the door, and the “football” fell, several of the bulbs shattering and shards of glass skittering across the floor. 

            Jon trudged slowly around the building and once again found the clogged gutter he had eyed moments ago.  Jon then proceeded to set up shop, as it were, so that he could clean out the gutter.  He set down the ladder, and noticed it start to slide on the ice.  “Stupid ladder,” Jon muttered under his breath.  Not wanting to be outdone by the ladder and its independent attitude, Jon decided to fight back.  He grabbed a handful of dirt and scattered it under the four legs.  He tested the ladder.  It barely moved.  However, he noticed that the ladder still was sitting at an angle because of the incline.  Jon, wisest of wise, knew just what to do.  He found two rocks of the same size, and put them under the legs on the downhill side of the slope.  He readjusted the ladder.  Perfect!  It was level.  “Now try moving you stupid thing,” Jon said, looking at the ladder. 

Jon climbed up the ladder.  It slid just a hair.  “Funny, real funny,” Jon thought.  He continued to climb.  He passed the “Do Not Stand On Or Above This Rung” warning and proceeded to clamber to the top.  Once he reached the ladder’s zenith, he carefully stood up, as if balancing on a ball.  Carefully, he reached overhead.  Grabbing a hold of the gutter, he realized the ladder was too short.  The edge of the gutter was at eye-level.  No problem.  Jon stood a bit higher by standing on his tip toes.  Now, he could just barely see over the gutter’s edge.  Reaching carefully overhead, Jon was able to extract the rotten foliage which was clogged in the downspout.  As he began to remove the debris, the ladder decided it was tired of holding up Jon’s weight, so it slowly began to slide downhill.  Jon, panic-stricken, grabbed hold of the gutter with both hands.  “Don’t even think of it!” Jon yelled.  The ladder continued to slide.  “Stupid ladder!” Jon burst out.

 First one rock and then the other were squeezed out from underneath the ladder’s legs like a bar of wet soap being stepped on in the shower.  The ladder teetered one way and then the other.  Jon struggled to steady the ladder with his feet, all the time cursing and condemning the tower on which he stood, but to no avail.  The ladder continued to totter and slide until finally it completely flew downhill and out from underneath Jon’s feet.

            Jon hung there for a few seconds trying to figure out a way out of this predicament when he heard the high pitched squeal of straining metal.  Then he realized that he was listening to the sound of the nails in the gutter beginning to pull from the flashing alongside the building.  Jon struggled to pull himself up and over the edge of the gutter, but found that his youth and strength had left him years ago.  His arms were beginning to ache, and he wouldn’t be able to hold on much longer.  The metallic squeal increased in intensity, and Jon began to feel himself starting to drop, little by little.  Suddenly, the entire gutter gave way, and Jon, the gutter and a handful of nails showered down onto the ground.  Jon landed on his butt and began to slide downhill.  As he slid, the gutter and nails crashed down around him onto the pavement and Jon jumped two small speed bumps which had previously been used to level the ladder.  At last, Jon came to a stop at the bottom of the incline.  Grimacing with pain and bruised, Jon turned to look at the damage.  Twisted metal hung from the building and nails peppered the pavement below.  A call came over his two-way radio.

            “Jon Mopp come in please.”

            “Go ahead,” Jon responded in a cool, “I’m okay” voice.

            The principal answered back, “I just wanted to let you know that the gutters on the side of the school are clogged with leaves.  Sometime today, could you clean those out for us?”

            “Sure, I’ll see what I can do,” Jon responded weakly.

            “Thanks,” came the reply.  “Oh by the way, be careful of the ice out there.  I don’t want to have to replace the gutter if you slip and fall and end up tearing it off the building!”

            “We’ll do,” Jon said, as he sat staring at the damage in front of him, his rear-end sore, wet and cold and his body aching. 

            Picking himself up off of the ground, Jon kicked the ladder, breaking his little toe.  “Stupid ladder!” Jon yelled out in pain.  After hobbling around for another five minutes, Jon collected his ladder and pride and limped back into the building.  He eyed the broken glass inside the storage room door with bewilderment, and then headed for the phone.  Picking it up he dialed.

            “Hello, Maintenance?”