I have a friend, Paul Lerner, a fellow retiree
and also a writer. He writes a column for our monthly senior paper and has
published quite a few short stories in what he calls e-zines. Paul and I
get together about once every week to hit tennis balls around; were both
too old to really play anymore. Last time we met at the tennis courts I
saw that Paul had a new car and complimented him on it. I
have to tell you a story about what happened last week, he said. We
sat down on one of the benches by the courts and this is the story he told
me.
The new car had several features Pauls
old car didnt have, one of them being a little box for the garage door
opener instead of attaching it to the visor. So Paul unscrewed the
clip in back of the opener and put the opener in the box. He
wondered if it would be secure, but the opener worked so he thought that did
it.
One day last week he came home from a round of
golf and was planning to have lunch and then go to our shopping mall to get, he
said, the latest issue of some writers market book. But when
he pushed the opener the garage door didnt open. As hed
feared, the opener must have shifted. He opened the box and the
opener fell out, scattering into different parts because, as he realized later,
the little screw which fastened on the clip also held the opener
together.
One of the pieces, plastic, which you pushed
in to activate the opener, fell onto the passenger seat. He put
this in his pocket for safekeeping, found two other parts and got out of the
car. At this very moment, a little old lady came up and started
telling him a long story about how she lived down the street in one direction
and her sister lived down the street in the other direction, and that last
night while they were in front of her sisters house a car had come
speeding by and the driver had called them foul names. This was
very upsetting to her, she said, and she wanted Paul to know who she was in
case she ever had to knock on his door for a safe haven. At
least, this was how Paul understood it. She then began talking
about crimes in their area and when she appeared ready to go on all day, Paul
told her he had a garage door opener problem he had to take care of and would
she excuse him.
The little old lady comes into the story, Paul
said, because by the time he went into the garage to open the garage door, then
drove his car in and looked at the separate parts of the opener hed
forgotten about the plastic part hed put into his pocket. So
he searched under the car seats front and back and of course found
nothing. Then he put his hand in his pocket and there was the
missing piece. His next step was to go into the house, sit down and
try to put the opener back together.
Now, as I said, Paul is a writer and you know
what klutzes writers are when it comes to doing anything with their
hands. So Paul tried fitting the pieces one way, then the other,
all with no success. But he persevered and finally the opener
seemed intact once again. Now for the triumphant happy
ending. Paul went out into the garage, pressed and --- nothing
happened. He pressed again --- still nothing. Then Paul
had a revelation. Garage door openers had a certain code, otherwise
anyone could open your garage door. He looked more closely and saw
eight little pins set either one way or the other and realized that this must
be the code and that in fooling around to put the opener together again he must
have moved one or more of these pins in the wrong direction.
So he got the garage door opener from his
wifes car and with trepidation and great care he removed the screw and
got it open. Yes, there were the eight pins and, sure enough, the
pins in the other opener didnt match them. Using a knife he
reset the pins, then, being very careful, managed to reassemble the
opener. He pressed it and this time the garage door opened.
Congratulations, I
said. Youre now a garage door opener expert.
Thats not the end of the
story.
No? What happened
next?
Well, by this time I was so worn out I
decided not to drive to the mall and get the writers market
book. I just stayed home all afternoon.
So?
So didnt you read in the paper
about that terrible accident at the mall? At least half a dozen
cars involved. And at three oclock, just the time I would
have driven there.
Are you telling me all those
things---the opener falling out and coming apart, the little old lady, the pins
being messed up---were so that you wouldnt drive to the mall?
What do you think?
After our tennis, I went back home and looked
for the paper on the day Paul was telling me about, but, as always happens, my
wife had thrown it out in the garbage. So Ill never know if
there really was that terrible accident. But, as I said,
Pauls a writer, and everyone knows what liars writers
are.