Lesson Seven: Fire and Ice

            Wispy tendrils of carbon dioxide drifted out of Jon’s mouth and into the frigid morning air.  Jon had just finished mopping two bathroom floors and had gone outside with his mop bucket to get some fresh air.                Man it’s cold out, Jon thought to himself as a blast of winter air slapped him in the face.  Resting his hands on his hips, Jon took a few minutes to catch his breath and then he dumped his mop bucket over the curb and onto the parking lot.  A lazy river of water slowly crawled toward the drain some thirty feet away.  Jon picked up the bucket, reinserted the mop squeeze and went back inside.  Opening the doors, a blast of warm air met Jon head on effectively blowing away the wave of coldness that had begun to hang on him.  A shiver ran down his spine and he shook momentarily as the heat penetrated his body. 

            Much better, Jon thought.  I’ll take the warmth over the cold any day.

            Straightening up, Jon grabbed the mop that was leaning against the wall, dropped it into the mop squeeze and headed off toward the nearest custodial closet.  Nearing the room, Jon’s mop bucket suddenly hit a small imperfection in the floor and flipped the entire bucket on its side.  A small amount of water trickled out of the bucket and onto the floor, the mop squeeze slid three feet away from the bucket, the mop fell from Jon’s hands into the wall leaving a small dent while Jon tripped over all three objects and crashed onto the floor.  Once again, Jon had forgotten the importance of putting the mop into the bucket instead of into the mop squeeze where the balance factor of physics came into play.  Jon quickly picked himself up and looked around.  Fortunately no one had seen his mishap.  Gathering up his tools, Jon finished his journey to the custodial closet and locked up all three items.  He then headed for his office.  As he walked, he began to feel a cool, moist, uncomfortable feeling on the front of his pants.  Looking down, Jon saw that when he’d fallen, he had landed squarely in the puddle of water that had pooled on the floor next to his mop bucket.  Now it looked as if he’d wet his pants.

            Dog gone it anyway! Jon murmured to himself.  This is not what I needed! 

            Diverting himself from his intended destination, Jon headed for the locker room.  Upon arriving, he turned on the hand dryer and stood underneath while at the same time pulling his pants away from his body to allow the hot air to dry out the wet spot.  After four cycles of the hand dryer, Jon’s pants were beginning to look normal again.  Figuring that was close enough, Jon smoothed his pants out and turned to leave only to find that the zipper had increased in temperature from a normal body level of 98.6 degrees to a scorching level equal to that used to fry eggs.  With lightning speed, Jon undid his belt, unzipped his pants, burning his fingertips in the process and dropped them to his knees.  Bruno, the wrestling coach, appeared out of nowhere and stopped, eyeing Jon suspiciously.  Jon, totally embarrassed and humiliated ripped his pants back up and reconnected everything with the grace of seamstress wearing boxing gloves.  The zipper was cooler and the wet spot was gone.  Quickly getting himself in order, Jon gave Bruno one more glance and left him standing speechless in the locker room.

            Upon reaching his office, Jon decided to check the weather.  Since it was so cold out, he supposed that before the day was over he would probably end up putting down de-icer on some of the more shaded and damp areas outside.  Sitting down at his computer, Jon logged on with his password.  Once the browser came up, Jon typed in the address for weather.  Leaning back in his chair, Jon waited while the site was being searched.  As the screen began to morph from one page to another, Jon’s office door opened and Vance, the school principal waltzed in. 

            “Hey Jon.  How’s it going today?”

            “Good.  And you?”

            “Not bad.”  Vance paused.  “I came to see where we were on getting room 118 painted.  How’s that coming?”

            “Very well.  I have everything cleaned, masked off and ready to go.  I was planning on doing some painting today if the weather holds.  If I have to de-ice, I may not get in there today.  I’ll have it done by the end of the week though.”

            Jon’s computer screen was beginning to load.  Boxes, colors, tool bars and so forth began to form behind Jon as he talked.

            “Sounds good,” Vance said glancing at the computer screen.

            “I was just going to check the weather forecast to see if I might need to de-ice anything today or not.”

            “You may, but I’m not sure.  The weather is cold, but I don’t know if it will get cold enough to ice up, at least during the day or not.  I guess we’ll have to wait and see.”

            “That’s what I was thinking.”

            As “was thinking” left Jon’s mouth, Vance’s mouth slowly dropped opened, much like a door whose springs have been worn out over the years.  His eyes became glued to the computer screen and his body tensed.  Jon thought to himself that whatever weather had come up on the screen must be more intense than he and Vance had anticipated.  Turning around, Jon’s heart jumped and a curtain of red dropped over his face.  He was staring at an x-rated website fully emblazoned with women whose lack of clothing indicated they weren’t in an area of icy cold weather. 

            Stammering and stumbling, Jon immediately grabbed the computer mouse and began clicking on the site to close it.  Of course, the faster he clicked it, the more unsavory sites popped up.  Screen after screen of shameful indecency continued to load.  Finally, Vance spoke.

            “So that’s the weather site?”

            “Uh, no, that’s, uh, not where I was trying to go,” Jon stuttered between screens of flesh.  “I thought I typed in the weather website.  I must have hit the wrong key or something.”

            Vance stood staring unsure of what to say.  Jon’s frantic efforts to remove the images from the computer were failing miserably. 

            “They won’t stop!” Jon exclaimed.  “I can’t get the sites to quit coming up.” 

            “I’m not a computer expert.  I don’t know what to tell you,” Vance said still dazed.

            Jon’s face was turning a dark purple now not only from embarrassment, but also from anger that the computer wouldn’t respond.  The door opened, and Sonia, the Vice-Principal walked in.

            “What the…!”

            Vance turned toward her, his face as red as her sweater.  “We’re trying to shut down the site, but it’s not responding.”

            With a wary and untrusting glance, Sonia walked over to the computer, pushed the reset button and all three watched as the computer rebooted.

            Looking like kids caught in a cookie jar, Vance and Jon turned toward Sonia.  She smiled and said to Vance, “I need to talk to you about the weather.”

            “Right, right,” he said, bumbling and stuttering as he tried to get his thoughts in order.  “Jon and I were just checking the computer for weather forecasts.”

            “Is that what you call it?” Sonia asked.

            Jon and Vance stuttered and fidgeted as they tried to explain their embarrassing situation.

            “Well, that’s what we were trying to do when this, this stuff came up.  I don’t know what happened.  Anyway, what about the weather?”  Vance tried to act as if nothing had happened by putting on an immediate air of interest in Sonia’s question.

            “It appears, according to the TV, that the weather will be getting colder over the next couple of hours.  School’s not out for another three, so we should probably be ready to do some de-icing at least in the shaded and wet areas.”

            “Jon, can you see that that gets taken care of?” Vance asked in his most authoritative voice. 

            “Of course,” Jon said his face still crimson.

            “Thank you.  Let me know if you need any help.  I may have a few students who can give you a hand.”

            “Thanks.  I’ll let you know.”

            Sonia turned to leave and Jon caught Vance’s eye as he turned to leave; an eye that said We’ll talk later!

            As the door shut behind them, Jon turned back to his fully rebooted machine.  A beautiful landscape illuminated the screen awaiting input from the operator.  Jon grimaced at it and got up to go elsewhere.

            About an hour later, Jon stuck his head outside.  The weather had definitely gotten colder and Jon knew that de-icing was in the schedule.  Jon loaded up his spreader with de-icing pellets, donned his coat, hat and gloves and headed out.  Once outside, Jon made his way around the school to find any shady or wet spots.  Slowly squeezing the spreaders’ release lever and moving forward, Jon was able to control the amount of flow of de-icer as it sprayed out across the numerous areas of slippery ground.  After a half an hour or so, Jon had de-iced the most critical areas and started back toward his office.  Walking and puffing, Jon’s gait was slower than when he’d started.  The cold and exertion had sapped much of his energy and he was now quite tired.  Trudging along, Jon suddenly came to a stop.  His ears perked up as he strained to listen.  Not far away, maybe 200 feet or less Jon could hear the telltale sounds of a dog running, his claws clipping the pavement, moving at high speed.  Turning around, Jon’s eyes widened as the stray dog that had been harassing many of the students and teachers over the last couple of days was headed straight for him!  Panic-stricken, Jon turned and ran.

            The spreader bounced along in front of Jon, tiny pellets of pink flying out of it with every bump.  The low-frequency growl and snarling of the dog prompted Jon’s mind to send signals to his legs instructing them to run faster than they’d ever run before.  Glancing back, Jon saw that the dog was gaining on him and quickly.  He was no more than 75 feet behind, and getting closer.  Jon’s eyes widened, but because he was running so fast, it caused the icy air to hit Jon’s eyes with more force than normal and to it instantly began to freeze them open.  A loud bark jolted Jon out of his concerns over his eyes, and his speed increased again while his eyes slammed shut at the same time. 

            Rounding the corner, Jon could see the door to his office just seconds away.  Focusing on his salvation, he ran, harder than he’d already run.  When he was within 20 feet of the door, Jon’s feet hit a large area of frozen mop water.  Just as Jon realized his feet were about to land on an almost friction-free surface, he let go of the spreader and watched as it pirouetted across the ice and slammed into the curb.  A beautiful spray of pink and blue pellets flew into the air and began to rain down onto the ground.  Jon’s balance was instantly thrown into chaos as he began to slide across the ice.  Arms flailing, Jon heroically tried to maintain a vertical position.  His feet slid in all directions and amazingly he was able to stay upright until he hit the curb.  Flying into the air, Jon saw the hard, cold, brick wall speeding toward him with such velocity that he knew a load of pain was just waiting to leap out of the starting gate.  With a muffled thud, Jon hit the wall.  Crumpling to the ground, Jon’s body came to rest, his back against the wall.  Opening his eyes, Jon was horrified to see the dog sliding haphazardly across the ice toward him; teeth bared, a growl emanating from his throat and his eyes filled with murderous fury.  At the same time, however, much of the colorful rain was falling back to earth.  The combination of de-icer pellets falling vertically to the ground and the velocity of the dog sliding horizontally forward made for an interesting sight as the dog received a mouthful of tiny pellets which were effectively strained through his sieve-like teeth.  Hacking and choking, the crazed canine instantly lost interest in Jon and became more concerned with his own life.  Crashing into the curb, the dog flipped and rolled head over tail smashing into the wall next to Jon.  Jon struggled to get up and run before the dog realized how close he was to his intended target while the dog, still dazed, sat spewing purple colored chunks of chemically enhanced salt crystals from his mouth. 

            With renewed zeal, Jon raced toward his office door, inserted the key, opened it and locked himself inside within 1.3 seconds.  Outside, the loud bark and growl of the bruised dog echoed across the parking lot.  Jon stood, his ear to the door waiting.  After a few minutes, the click, click, click of the dog’s paws slowly faded away as he wandered off.  Jon turned to pull his head away from the door only to realize that in the ensuing chase and near death experience, his ear had gotten wet, and now it was frozen to the inside of the metal door.  Jon had no way to reach a glass of warm water, so he began to lick his fingers and trace around the outside of his ear while slowly pulling it off of the door.  After about a minute, 75% of his ear was free.  Then Bruno unlocked the door from the outside and jerked it open.  Screaming with pain, Jon stumbled backwards holding his head and fell against the shelf knocking a half filled can of turpentine onto his pants.  Jumping back, Jon threw the can to the side before his pants were soaked and grabbed a rag to put against his ear. 

            “You okay,” Bruno asked.

            “No,” Jon replied through clenched teeth. 

            The door shut behind Bruno and a small piece of skin fell onto his shoulder.  Brushing it aside, he walked over to Jon and looked at the damage.

            “It’s just a small wound.  It will heal without any problem.”

            Although small to a wrestling coach, to Jon it was a major concern and it hurt beyond compare. 

            Oblivious to Jon’s pain, Bruno asked, “Can you come take a look at our hand dryers in the locker room?  One of them isn’t working.”

            Jon mustered up strength to answer and said “I’ll be down in a bit.”

            “Thanks buddy,” Bruno said slapping Jon on the back. 

            Jon bucked forward from the blow and stumbled to catch himself.  Bruno was already out the door by the time Jon stopped teetering.  Going to the mirror, Jon examined his ear.  It wasn’t really that bad after all, but because of the numbness from the cold and the sensitive area the wound was in, it still hurt terribly.  Jon blotted the area, cleaned it up and headed to the locker room, a mild throb emanating in his ear. 

            Upon arriving, Jon found Bruno giving the wrestling team a pep talk.  When he turned to leave Bruno called out for him to ‘come on in and take a look.  It won’t bother us.’  Jon turned back around and went over to the hand dryers.   Of the three on the wall, Jon found the one that wasn’t working; last.  He pushed the button a few times, looked it over carefully, examined the nozzle for any foreign objects and then tried it again.  Nothing happened.  The next step was to check the circuit breaker.  Jon turned to leave and thought he’d try the dryer once more.  This time he “hit” the button.  When he did so, something popped inside and a large shower of sparks flew from the unit.  The entire wrestling team turned to see what was going on just in time to see the sparks settle down on Jon’s pants.  With a “whoosh,” Jon’s pants burst into flames as the semi-dry turpentine caught fire.  Jon yelled, dropped to the floor and began rolling around to put out the fire.  Bruno ran over and threw a towel over him and within a few seconds the fire was out.  Then the smoke detector activated and the fire alarm went off.  Jon couldn’t believe it.  Clambering to his feet, slightly singed and madder than a nest of hornets, Jon briskly walked out the door to go check the fire alarm panel.  As he headed for the building, being careful to avoid slipping on the ice, the deep, low growl of a dog froze him in his tracks.  Turning around, Jon found himself face-to-face with a purple-lipped, bruised and angry canine.  Jon slowly backed up as the dog crept forward to corner him.  Behind the dog, Jon saw Bruno come around the corner.  Seeing the commotion, Bruno called out.

            “Come here boy. Come on.”

            The dog stopped, turned and looked at Bruno and then back at Jon.

            “Come here.  Good boy.  Come to papa.”

            The dog, still growling, sensed Bruno’s affection for the canine species.  He looked back at Jon again, then turned around and wagging his tail, walked over to the caressing hand of Bruno. 

            “Good boy.  Good boy.  Are you lost?   Where do you live?”

            Jon couldn’t believe what he was seeing.  After everything that had happened, Bruno appears and without even a hint of fear, he makes instant friends with this sadistic beast.  That was enough.  Jon had reached the boiling point.  Filled with rage, Jon turned to enter the building and quell the fire alarm and walked right smack into the door.  Bouncing off of it, Jon stumbled backwards.  At the same instant, Vance opened the door and stepped outside.

            “What’s going on?” he yelled over the din of the fire claxon.

            “A hand dryer shorted out in the boys’ locker room.  I’m going to reset the panel.”

            Jon and Vance both hurried to the fire panel and after a few more seconds of irritating noise silenced the alarm. 

            “Much better,” Vance sighed.  “So, tell me what happened.”

            Jon took a breath, and related what had happened.  After the explanation, Jon realized Sonia was standing in her doorway listening and looking.  Jon felt self-conscious and looked her in the eyes.  Then he noticed she wasn’t looking at his face.  She was staring at his pants.  Looking down, Jon noticed two large burnt holes just above his knees.  His singed legs were showing through and tiny pink pellets were stuck here and there.  Looking back up, Jon’s face turned red again. 

            Sonia looked at Jon.  “So, what did you find out about the weather on the Internet?”

            Jon blushed even more.  Looking at Vance for help, Vance turned to leave. 

            “Maybe you boys would like to check the conditions on my computer.”

            Vance stopped, looked at Sonia and then at Jon.  “No thanks.  We’re fine.”

            Smiling, Sonia turned back into her office.  Vance disappeared into his and Jon turned to go back to his office.  As he was about to leave, Bruno walked through the door.

            “Hey Jon.  There’s a bunch of ice out back.  Looks like some idiot dumped a bunch of water on the parking lot.  Somebody’s going to get hurt.  You might want to put some de-icer on it.”  Bruno walked on by leaving Jon standing all alone.

            “Right.  I’ll get right on it,” Jon muttered under his breath.