Lesson Twelve: Hung Out to Die

            Jon’s eyes adjusted to the dark.  Turning his flashlight to the path ahead, minuscule specks of dust drifted through the light beam like tiny sea creatures in a shaft of sunlight piercing the surface of the sea.  Surrounding him were walls covered in dust.  The ceiling overhead lay no more than a couple feet away.  The floor was covered by dust, debris and animal carcasses, small ones to be sure, but nevertheless, carcasses.  Jon pointed his beam straight ahead.  He reached up and turned on his headlamp and adjusted it as well.  A long, dark tunnel greeted him.  He was in one of the areas behind some classrooms in the school that led to an array of conduit, duct work and plumbing pipes. Jon was on a mission to find out why water was leaking into the women’s staff bathroom behind the toilet.  He’d already checked all connections and plumbing in the bathroom itself.  Still, water was creating a puddle on the floor daily.  Jon was determined to find the cause. 

            In order for Jon to reach his destination, he had to work his way through a maze of tunnels and intersections.  As was typical, the engineers did not see it necessary to create access points to areas of major usage in the building.  They figured that once things were built and sealed up they would never fail.  That looks good on paper, but in real life that was definitely not the case.  A simple access door near the fixtures in the bathroom would have sufficed, but instead, the only way behind the wall lay some fifty feet away and down a labyrinth of compact tunnels.

            Jon had entered this catacomb via a custodial room.  One of several access doors throughout the building was to be found here.  Straining his neck and turning his head around, Jon could see the light from the custodial room shining brightly into the tunnel behind him.  Taking a deep breath of particle-laden air, he trudged forward.  About twenty feet in, he came to a side tunnel.  Straight ahead the tunnel made a sharp ninety degree turn and then ended abruptly at a ladder that went down one floor to other areas.  Jon needed to turn left. 

            Tiny dust clouds swirled up behind him as he walked to the next T intersection.  Reaching it, he looked left and then right.  Were he to go left, he would again run into a ninety degree turn that would terminate at another ninety whereupon he would be greeted by a ladder that went up one floor.  He didn’t need to go that way.  Turning right, Jon made his way over old pieces of contractor wires, cigarette butts and other rubbish.  Shuffling along, Jon kicked over an old Coke can that echoed loudly through the tunnel.  Conduit, pipes and duct work were all part of the maze and now and then Jon found himself ducking, twisting and high-stepping over the inconvenient placement of these items.  After walking another ten feet or so, Jon stopped at the point where the water pipes for the women’s bathroom disappeared through the wall.  This was the spot he’d been looking for.

            Since the tunnels were constructed to a minimum width, turning to squat and work on anything in them was always a challenge.  In an effort to save money, the engineers figured that tunnels two-feet wide were plenty wide enough to maneuver in and repair anything that might be in need of repair.  Did these guys ever walk through their drawings come to life?  Obviously not! 

            Jon twisted his body sideways and placed his back against the wall.  Using his headlamp and flashlight, he began to scrutinize the plumbing to find the tell-tale leak that was making his life miserable.    Carefully following the pipes, Jon scanned them from bottom to top.  The pipes for this toilet came from overhead where they wended their way throughout the building.  At a T connection, the water line dropped down, turned and went through the wall.  It connected directly to the toilet on the other side.  Jon looked closely at the connections by the T joint and the 90 degree elbow that turned it toward the wall.  He didn’t see anything dripping, but he did notice a buildup of hard water calcification around the T joint.  About the same time, the toilet flushed on the other side of the wall.  Jon looked back up in time to see a small spot of water beginning to grow and glisten around the edges of the calcification.  It slowly ran down the pipe and onto the 90 degree elbow.  Jon watched as it dripped on the floor by his feet.  It was then that he noticed a slight discoloration in the dust where water had puddled and dried many times over.  The water stain butted right up against the wall and disappeared underneath.  That’s where the water was getting into the bathroom. 

            Jon heard the faint click of a door shutting and then the slight rustling of someone in the bathroom.  Before they could flush the toilet again, he took out his large pipe wrench and carefully turned the pipe that connected to the T fitting.  The pieces of calcification fell off and into Jon’s eye.  Stopping and mumbling, he gently brushed them out and blinked a few times to make sure they were gone.  Once convinced he could see clearly he went back to tightening the pipes.  The pipe turned just a hair before stopping.  He waited.  In a few moments he heard the toilet flush.  Quickly, he scanned the pipe and all connections.  Nothing dripped.  More commotion and the bathroom door shut again.  Since school was in the process of being resurrected for another day of activity, several of the staff were using the facilities one after the other before school started.  He watched and waited.  Again a flush.  No drips.  This was great!  A first time fix instead of problem after problem.  Jon waited through a few more flushing cycles and decided he’d fixed the problem.  Packing up his tools he turned to go.

            Trudging back to the intersection, Jon stopped and looked to his left where he’d come from a bit ago.  He thought for a moment and then set his tools down.  He decided he’d check a couple other things while he was here since it has been awhile since he’d done so.  He walked another ten feet and made a 90 degree turn to his right.  Going another thirty feet he turned right again.  The tunnel terminated at a ladder that went up ten feet to another level where the maze continued on.  Jon climbed.  Toward the top of the ladder, the opening narrowed where the ceiling from the lower tunnel turned and went vertical thus becoming a wall behind Jon’s back.  As he passed the point where this occurred, Jon’s sweatshirt snagged on a loose piece of metal and ripped.  Jon stopped and backed down to try and release his sweatshirt.  Instead of it releasing, it just pulled his sweatshirt higher over his head as he descended.  When he got low enough, he reached overhead and tried to dislodge it from the metal.  Unfortunately, the metal snag was such that it acted more like a fish hook.  It had a small bur on it wherein his sweatshirt had easily gone underneath the metal, but wouldn’t come out.  Jon pulled a little harder trying to avoid ripping his sweatshirt completely.  When he did, the sweatshirt became more entangled in the metal snag.  Jon pulled again, this time more aggressively.  The sweatshirt wouldn’t budge.  Frustrated, Jon jerked hard on his sweatshirt and figured he’d end up with a hole in it but at least he’d be free.  When he did, he slipped off the ladder and found himself hanging by his sweatshirt some ten feet off the ground.  Looking like a piece of shucked corn whose husk had not yet been removed, Jon’s body hung in the air, his sweatshirt around his head and his arms frantically trying to reach the ladder.

            Jon kicked his feet wildly in the hopes that the movement produced would not only loosen his sweatshirt but also swing him into the ladder whereupon he could grab hold and climb down.  The more he kicked and flailed, the more tightly his sweatshirt became ensnared.  Now that it had bunched up around the metal bur, his sweatshirt was more likely than not to stay there permanently.  Instead of it holding on by a few threads, his sweatshirt was holding on by hundreds, if not thousands of threads.  It was now like trying to rip a rope in two instead of snapping a piece of string. 

            Jon stopped moving and thought about his situation.  Craning his neck to look out the top of his sweatshirt with his arms tangled overhead, Jon figured that maybe he could gently swing himself into the ladder.  Easily and slowly he began to move his legs like a pendulum back and forth gaining momentum until he could feel his toes touch the ladder rungs.  With each swing, his feet went a little farther past the rung until he eventually was able to feel his heels touching the rungs.  On the next swing, Jon dropped his feet over the rung so that his heels locked against the back side of the ladder.  Jon now found himself at a forty-five degree angle.  His feet were locked in the rungs and his hands and arms were entangled overhead within the confines of his sweatshirt which was bunched up and securely fastened to the metal snag on the wall.  It was at this point that a small spider dropped down from the ceiling and decided Jon’s bare chest would be a great place to play!

            At first it was a minor irritation like an itch that he couldn’t scratch.  Then he noticed it moving.  This was more than an itch.  As he wiggled his body to dislodge whatever was irritating him, the movement unseen to him continued apace.  It went from one side of his torso to the other in rapid succession.  In fact, the more Jon moved, the faster the spider ran.  Agonizing over this development, Jon’s voice joined the fray by mumbling and grunting in hopes that the noises might help in the removal of this tiny arachnid.   At least that’s what he thought it was.  And since he couldn’t see it, his imagination took over and told him that this feeling which at first he thought was small seemed to be growing.  He began thinking that maybe those tiny feelings he felt at first were not actually a tiny spider but a very large one who was running around on his tiptoes just barely touching the surface of Jon’s chest in an attempt to fool him as to his size.  Now that freaked Jon out!

            Jon screamed and twisted wildly, his chest bucking in the air as he tried to catapult the creature into space.  Since Jon’s head was buried inside his sweatshirt and T-shirt, the screams emanating from his mouth were muffled and sounded more like the grunting sounds of some animal at the zoo.  As Jon bucked and writhed the spider lost traction a couple of times and was thrown into the air only to land on Jon again.  Jon noticed this and figured one good spasm should send it flying.  Gathering all his energy into one huge convulsion, Jon bucked with all his might and sent the spider soaring.  It hit the rung of the ladder, flew through the air and went right down the opening in the top of Jon’s sweatshirt.  Falling through space, the spider landed inside Jon’s inside-out apparel and landed on his face.  Jon opened his mouth to scream and the spider fell in.  Jon choked, hacked, coughed and sputtered, but the tenacious creature found a foothold on his front tooth.  Using his tongue, Jon attempted to dislodge the little guy but instead squished him flat against the back side of his upper incisor.  Jon gagged, scraped the body from his tooth with his tongue and spit it out.  It flew half an inch and stuck to the front of his sweatshirt which was directly in front of his eyes.  He couldn’t see it, but he could sense the carcass was there.

            Jon needed to get out of this predicament and soon.  His arms were tiring and starting to fall asleep.  His back was beginning to ache and his feet wouldn’t hold on much longer.  And the knowledge that a dead spider lay only centimeters from his face was motivation enough to end this dilemma.  The only other thing he could do was to try and untangle his arms from his sleeves and crawl out of his sweatshirt while at the same time holding on tightly for dear life so he didn’t drop to the floor one story below.  He began working his arms free of their prison. 

            Thread by thread.  Wrinkle by wrinkle, Jon slowly untangled himself from his cloth poke until he felt his torso start to fall out of his sweatshirt.  It was very much like releasing one’s fingers from a Chinese Finger Puzzle.  As gravity slowly sucked him from his confines, he prepared himself for the drop so that he could catch himself before falling on his head ten feet below.  Suddenly, one arm broke free and before his other arm could fall out he grabbed hold of the sweatshirt and held on for dear life.  Mustering up all the energy he had left in his body, he pulled himself up and toward the ladder all the while keeping his feet as tight as possible against and around the ladder rung.  Once he reached out and grabbed hold of the uppermost rung, he breathed a sigh of relief.  Resting, Jon thought about his situation.  After some of his strength oozed back into his muscles, he carefully positioned himself so that he could work on untangling his sweatshirt.  It took a few minutes, but eventually he undid it and carefully climbed to the floor below.  He examined his clothing and found a tear on the back about two inches long and ¼” wide.  Not too bad considering.  He slipped it and his T-shirt back over his head, carefully brushed the tiny body from his sweatshirt and turned to find his way out of this labyrinth of tunnels.

            Gathering up his tools, Jon sauntered slowly down the dusty tunnel, his headlamp capturing dust particles and tiny bugs in the beam.  He’d worn himself out trying to dislodge his body from his clothing and was now very tired.  Within a minute he’d reached the access door through which he’d entered less than 30 minutes ago.  Strangely, the door was shut.  It must have drifted shut while he was working.  He reached down, confident that the emergency release handle would open the door to the familiar world he knew, the inside of the school.  Jon lifted up on the handle.  It didn’t move.  He tried again.  Still nothing.  Sweat started to form on his head.  His nerves became taut.  Using both hands, Jon pulled up and pushed down with all his strength.  It didn’t budge.  Jon’s heart pounded inside his chest like a caged Orangutan, wildly excited and panicked to get out.  For ten minutes Jon worked on extricating himself from his predicament, but to no avail.  Disheartened, Jon’s mind went to work.  How to get out?  What to do?  How to avoid being trapped in here for hours or days?  Then it struck him.  Another exit!

            Jon remembered that if he went down the tunnel he’d just come through, he could go straight instead of turning left and he’d eventually come to a ladder that dropped down from the ceiling overhead which led to a trap door that opened onto a hallway floor.    Confident of escape, Jon turned and jauntily headed for the other escape hatch. 

            Jon walked twenty to thirty feet and found the ladder.  Ahead of him the tunnel took a ninety degree turn and ended at the ladder that climbed skyward to the next level.  That tunnel continued on to other areas of the building, but this ladder on the wall would take him eight feet up and out through the trap door.  Jon secured his tools around his waist, adjusted the beam on his headlamp and climbed up three rungs.  Reaching up, he twisted the handle on the door.  It opened with ease.  Pushing upward, Jon attempted to open the door.  It wouldn’t move.  He tried again.  Nothing.  Jon climbed another rung and then resting his shoulder against the door he pushed with all his might.  He heard a creak, a crack and the door moved.  Elated, Jon pushed harder, the door opened even more and a shaft of light pierced the darkness like a dagger piercing through the outer skin of some prehistoric beast.  One more push and the door sprung free.  As it opened, Jon noticed strings of something stuck to the door and also to the floor where the door had been when shut.  It reminded him of a very cheesy pizza and the long, fibrous strings that form when you remove a slice by lifting it three feet above the pie.  Weird.  He used his hand to swipe away the strings and pushed the door fully open.  Climbing out, Jon took a deep breath and stretched.  Looking in both directions, Jon scanned the hallway for any clandestine observers who might have seen him emerge.  There was no one.  Relieved, Jon reached down and closed the hatch.  Then he realized what the strings were.  They were glue that had been used to hold the floor tile down.  Jon had forgotten that just last year new tile had been laid in that hallway, and since no one used that trap door, it had been tiled over.  Now chunks of broken tile lay in pieces around the edges of the door and the glue was sticking to other tiles still intact.  The door shut fine, but it looked terrible.  Another project he would have to repair.  Jon picked up the pieces and returned to his office where he took a break to rest his tired soul. 

            Within ten minutes there came a knock on the door.  Jon responded.  In the doorway stood Vance, the school principal.

            “Hey Jon.  How’s your day going?”

            “Well, thanks.”

            “Great!  It’s going to be another nice day.”

            Jon shook his head apprehensively.  “Yup.”

            Vance paused.  Then, “do you know what happened to the tile in the hallway?  Several chunks are missing in the shape of a square.  It looks very strange.”

            Jon smiled sheepishly.  “Yes, I saw that.  I will try to fix it as soon as possible.  It’s on my list.”

            “Great!  I can always count on you to get things done.”  Vance smiled and patted Jon on the shoulder.  “Enjoy the sun today and don’t get yourself into trouble!”

            “Thanks.  I’ll try not to.” 

            The door shut and Jon stood there bewildered as a roll of toilet paper fell off the shelf above his head.