Sometimes Work is Fun, Sometimes Not.

A few weeks ago, a customer called our business, asking if we might possibly have time to locate a terrible smell coming from their duct vents. We told them that they'd probably be better off calling a duct-cleaning service, and we recommended Americlean.

The customer called back recently to tell us that Americlean had done their very best, but there was still a foul smell coming from the ducts. The homeowner suspected it was coming from inside the furnace.

I asked Mom to join me and we went to see what we could find. Mom was excited about the prospect of discovering the source of the mystery odor. I pulled the doors off the furnace and gasped at the stench. We discovered three dead mice, or what was left of them in the blower compartment. They had destroyed the insulation, so we spent quite a while cleaning up this decayed, smelly mess. Mom did an excellent, meticulous job cleaning each corner and nook and cranny, and I was very grateful to have her along. After we finished the blower compartment, we pulled out the large, pleated filter media that was adjacent to the blower compartment. There, we found a dead chipmunk nestled in the folds of the filter.

Sometimes I don't like my job.


We replaced the filter, and I decided to replace the fan motor since it was caked with a mixture of rodent excrement and the expected amount of dirt and grit from 23 years of dutiful service. We drove back to the shop and I started working on the fan motor. I cleaned the blower, cleaned the housing, replaced the fan motor and capacitor, and then put the whole thing back together. I headed back to the customer's home by myself.

I met the customer upon my return, and greeted him by saying "Good afternoon!" He replied, "I believe my afternoon is going better than yours is." He apologized for the terrible smells, even though he didn't place the rodents there. He thanked me over and over for coming to his aid. "I'm having guests over tonight, and I'll need to run the A/C, but I can't if it smells like a dead mouse." I warned him that there would most likely be residual odor. After all, some of the mice had been in long enough to be reduced to nothing but a small lump of crusty little bones.

I finished replacing the fan assembly in the furnace, and closed everything up. The customer came out to thank me once again, and handed me a $20. "Buy a tea or a beer or something, to get rid of that terrible mouse odor." He said, with a laugh.

Sometimes I really like my job.

He moved to shake my hand, but I smiled and told him I needed to go wash it first before shaking anyone's hand. I took off and went straight to my place to shower, change, and arrive at VBS. Tonight was our last night. We ran the VBS from Sunday-Thursday on account of Myron's wedding this weekend.

This week has been a lot of fun, but a lot of work. Caught up in each day, it felt like an eternity, but in all reality, it feels like the week just flashed by. Since Christopher was on Hike with several other young men, I took his place as Detective Reggie in the drama each day. I was nervous every evening, and I'm not sure why. I'm a goofy detective jumping around in front of roughly 40 kids with a planned script in my hand. How difficult is that? But I still found things to be nervous about. Each night went excellent, and the kids didn't even notice I was nervous. As a detective, I had a secret identity each evening, printed neatly on a "Hello, My Name Is" sticker. The first night I was "Shawn", because I wasn't fast enough to think about aliases. The second night I was "Clyde", the third night I was "Rufus", the fourth night I was "Dexter", and tonight I was "John Jacob Jingle-Heimer Schmidt" which took four "Hello, My Name Is" stickers. Each night, I'd tell kids to come back and bring their friends. I wouldn't tell the kids what my secret identity was going to be for the next day, which became a huge deal to them. "Who are you today?" "What does that spell?" "Your next name should be Sullivan."

All the VBS's in my entire life have gone from Monday-Friday. Night three should be Wednesday, night five should be Friday, etc. So I've been battling the strange disparity in days all week. I really feel like tomorrow should be Saturday.

There is so much information to cover but I can't even hardly take the time to write about it, so I'll give you some insufficient teasers about what's been going on.

Phoenix was awesome, amazing, and so refreshing. It was hot and tiring too. Jesus provided for me a thousand times. For example, I placed my spare insulin in a fridge a few days into the trip. That fridge quit working and was moved outside without my knowledge. My insulin sat in a hot fridge outside in the Phoenix sun for a day or two. The insulin should have become sterile and worthless at those temperatures, but we prayed that God would make things work out, and they did. I could talk about all the miracles, but that topic deserves its own post.

Dad got tired of our driveways getting flooded here at the trailer, so he had 53 truckloads of clay-and-dirt dumped in here. We've been spreading it around and flattening it enough to drive on, but I have to take it slow, lest jugs of milk turn into crates of butter halfway to the trailer. Any sprinkling of rain turns the driveway into a swampy, clammy mess. My friend Tyler was briefly stuck here and I sorta wish he would have been stranded here longer but we got him free and back on his way to Wisconsin. Now the Low Driveway is our High Driveway, three feet taller than it used to be.

My roommate Victor moved out, my other roommate Shane got engaged, and will soon move out, when he gets married. Victor is house-sitting for his Grandma for a couple of months, and I'm not sure if he'll return here afterward, but I hope he does. He is an awesome roommate to have.

My sequoias stood firm through The Great Flood of 2013, but the flood after that took the wind out of their little sapling sails. They look dirty and bedraggled, like they've lost confidence in becoming awe-inspiring giants. I need to give them some more pep talks. And maybe clean the flood-mud off their trunks.

Sometimes, I run out of chutzpah and get antisocial. I can handle large groups of people for a limited amount of time, and I am quickly reaching that threshold. I have a wedding to attend this weekend, then a fairly-normal week of just work. After that, I'll be a counselor for a week in Indiana. I'm excited about it, but I'm also praying "Lord give me energy and patience. Lots of both, but especially the energy. Amen" more and more often.

I blog a lot in my mind. I will try to capture that and type it more often.

Okay.

Goodnight.