Breathing Room

Theodocia

I appreciate Dave's commitment to his grandmother. She's 89 years old.

Theodocia....that's correct, her first name that is...

He visits his grandmother at least once a week. Yesterday we stopped by because her phone had been giving the busy signal since the night before and we were obviously worried.

Theodocia is like many other octogenarians who refuse to admit they're hard of hearing. Instead they resort to telling you to speak up or speak out like my own grandfather, or they consistently ask you to repeat yourself until you throw up your hands and scream, "I give up!" mentally anyway.

Her phone has previously been knocked off the hook and she was quite unaware the whole time. That's nothing new. But Theodocia is a friendly lady and likes to use her phone, if only to call her last living sibling (a total of 10) Harold, the youngest of the bunch, to check on him. She being the oldest.

I tell Dave to call Verizon. He does, and they tell him the phone is off the hook and its not due to the lightning storm as the next door neighbor blamed for her own phone troubles.

Now Dave is sweating (nothing new) and pacing. He's picturing all types of things that he wouldn't be able to live with had any of these things actually taken place and he left presuming everything is fine. We'd rung the doorbell until you'd have to be deaf not to hear it.

So Dave pulls off his shirt and becomes Batman. He grins when I tell him this (he would be Batman if he could). He has his black slacks on, with a black beater and black dress shoes. He lacks all the useful gadgets that would be helpful in climbing onto the roof.

Why must he climb the roof? Well he does have a key folks. Yes indeed. But Mrs. Theodocia, God bless her, in her home of over 50 years has chains and sliding locks and bolts that can only be opened from the inside. Why all the chains and bolts...well this is west Philly folks, Will Smith had to get out.

The clock reads 9:00 p.m. and there are no lights on in her bedroom. She doesn't seem to be going down to fix herself some dinner and so drastic measures call for...well drastic actions of course.

Dave somehow pulls himself up on the roof (he may secretly be Batman with a serious tan) and knocks on her upstairs window. I call up to him, that he should identify himself as she's probably scared out of her mind.

But she has no fear, because after all she has Jesus who she prays faithfully to every morning for three hours (honestly) and listens to gospel radio all day every day. So she comes to window, not recognizing Dave, and says "What do you want?"

Dave is telling her to open the window, because I will not allow him to try and get back down, he would definitely break something. She wants to know who he is and what he wants.

"Grandma its me...David."

"David"....."David"....."DA-vid"....."DA-VID"

"ooohhh David, well what are you doing up here?"

It took another five minutes of explanations about the phone and the door and the doorbell before she was satisfied enough to open the window.

By this time three mosquitoes had snacked on my leg and my ankle.

David really gave it to Verizon. Let em' have it. Turns out the phone was off the hook.