It started I guess sometime last week. Mrs. N- lost her keys. Her apartment has a card key, like you find in hotels, so that was fine, but she could not get her mail or into her car. Pop-A-Lock or some other company was here on Friday, spending all day taking apart her car door and trying to make a new key. I am still unsure as to why a car dealership can not make a replacement for her. I do not remember what kind of car it is but it is a few years old now. Mrs N-, by the way, in in her eighties now. To give you a bit of a back story, let me tell you about this St. Patrick's Day just passed.
I wore a green plaid suit to work that day to celebrate the holiday. It was fun, even though or maybe due to the fact that a third of my residents had no idea why I was dressed in a suit. (It was green, and it was St. Patrick's Day)! I saw Mrs. N- in the hallway sometime during the morning. She was in a light green blazer with clover earrings and green beads around her neck.
“Oh don't you look lovely” she commented to me, “Dressed up for the holiday?”
“Yes I am” I smiled,
“I hate St. Patrick's day, let me tell you. You know when I first came here to Savannah, it was St. Patrick's Day. We stayed at some hotel down on River Street and you could see the police officer just hanging out with the people drinking. Not doing anything! It was a disgrace. And the girls were all lifting their tops. I thought I moved to Hell!”
I was speechless by this point, her voice moving from sweet old lady to possessed by the spirit within a few short sentences. I have a cart full of tools and supplies I push down the corridors, and these elderly residents do not move quickly, so it is hard to just run by them without being rude. And I still do not understand how one hates the holiday with such a passion and still dresses up for the occasion anyway. Except perhaps that the dining room was offering a free glass of wine for happy hour that night for anybody in green. So there were very few residents not wearing green that day.
In any case, this is the lady who had difficulties with her car keys last Friday. Today, having just finished eating my lunch and heading through the lobby back to the time clock to punch back in, there is a man from Critz BMW in the lobby. He asked if I worked here and if I could help out this lady with her bags. He was looking for a dolly or a cart, and I showed him our bellman's cart.
“I don't think she will be able to handle that herself either” he said.
“It's okay. I will come right back and help out.” I had looked out the doors and watched Mrs. N- heading in from the car. So I clocked in and returned to the lobby and pushed the cart with her grocery bags back up to her apartment with her. She was very thankful to the man from BMW and asked when her car might be ready, and we headed down the hall to the elevator and up to her floor. She had explained to me during this trip how she lost her keys and how the post office charged her 79.00 for a new key and how can they do that and when we got out of the elevator I got a few steps in front of her, thinking to myself how slow some of these residents are. She continued talking.
“Every morning I ask god to surround me with angels to help me out and here you are. You better watch those things on your back because they are wings.”
And I just about melted. Awwww. I mean, I have these moments of hurry up and these moments where I glaze over while they are talking and I have these moments where I am reminded that all I did right today was to ask for God to show me his will, to be who he wants me to be (which occurred on the Truman Parkway heading in here, running just about late to work, this morning) and I made Mrs. N-'s day today just by being in the right place at the right time.
Awesome. And to top it off the government owes me eighty-five cents on taxes this year!
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