WHO ATE MY BACON

Image courtesy free clipart

 

Over the years working as a roofer I have installed thousands of roofs.

Starting out as an apprentice I made it a practice to try to learn something new pertaining to my job each and every day.  At the end of the day I would consciously ask myself  "What did I learn today?"  This continued for at least twenty years until I had seen just about everything.

For the first few years before I went into business for myself I worked for a sub-contractor who had a contract with Sears®.

Because I almost never saw the salesman that sold the job, I was given a packet with the information needed to explain what was to be done.  In the packet was the name of the owner, a diagram of the roof, and what was to be done. 

One thing that was not included was if it was a rental property.  This could be a problem if the owner never told the renter we were coming.  Some of the renters really gave us a bad time not wanting us to install the roof.  

Since I was working for a service company I had to take a lot of guff from these people who were renters.  It would take me about three hours to return to the shop, unload, get another job loaded, and go to the new job so I would tell them whatever came to mind such as; "The owner has a legal right to maintain this property shall I call the police to sort it out?"  

 

Sometimes I would say; "There will be a charge to the owner for me coming out here of a couple hundred dollars and I'm sure he will look to you for the cost to him.

There were several ways I developed to handle this problem, and sometimes I would just ignore them and go to work.

Then came the day when I was sent out to a neighborhood where there was a lot of shooting at various times and this always caused me a little anxiety when working in that area.  

Since I was of the wrong ethnic group that made me a little more uneasy.  In any case I went up the door of the property to be roofed and rang the bell but got no answer so I proceeded to knock and still no response.

After waiting for a while and knocking again on the door with no response I finally put up my ladder on this two story building.

The material had to be carried all the way up the two stories.  I grabbed a bundle of shingles that weighed seventy pounds, and carried it up to the roof and began to nail them on.  Then it was down to get another bundle, and as I got to the second floor the window was thrown open and this stout very voluptuous woman stuck her head out the window.

She had just got up and was wearing a loosely fitting night gown, and as she leaned out the window she had an "Oops moment."  After she gathered her self back into her garment she wanted to know the details of what was going on.

I quickly explained for my ladder was swaying from the weight of the bundle of shingles that was trying to push my feet through the rungs of the ladder.

She said all right and disappeared back into the room. I guess she was lonely for several times she would stop me while I was climbing up to the roof and wanted to talk to me.  All the time she was talking the shingles were getting heavier.

Finally it was noon time and I had seen three young boys in the house during the morning and as I sat down to eat lunch I heard a loud voice yell, "Who ate my bacon?" then silence.

A moment later I heard something that sounded like a strap slapping on flesh and there was a trio of boys screaming, “It wasn't me.”  Every so often the strap would stop and those words would boom out, "Who ate my bacon?"

This continued until I finished my lunch, the non-stop crying ceased; then all was silent.  

Later while down on the ground getting some materials the woman came outdoors and she was big. I wondered how her dress could hold all of her curves in without splitting. It looked like everything was trying to escape but

I could see she felt proud of the image she projected and I didn't act otherwise either for she was big.

She knew I heard all that screaming and felt she should explain.

It seems she had got the boys up and asked if they wanted her to fry them some bacon and they were busy playing and all said, "No."

She then proceeded to fry herself some bacon and after she finished she left the room for a couple of minutes.  When she returned her bacon was gone, hence the question, "Who ate my bacon?"

When all three denied it and out came the strap.  After over twenty minutes of strap action on all three boys, one of them confessed and that was the end of it.  She knew she had the right one because it had to be one of the three and of course the other two got the benefit of the teaching.

As she left she said; "I'm going to teach them boys not to lie to me."

I finished the job before she returned.

That evening I asked myself, “What did you learn today?

Without question the answer was; "Never to eat that bacon.”