Sticks and Stones

Sticks and Stones

Every summer I worked painting new custom homes with my father. One year we were working on a house, out in the middle of nowhere, near the Ohio border. The home owner would arrive every afternoon, about five o’clock, after he left work. He would drive all of the contractors crazy.

One day he noticed a broken window. The window had been broken by a drywall worker and the superintendent knew it. Another window had been ordered and we were going to finish it when it arrived. As soon as the owner saw the window, he ran to my father and said, “I saw that window you broke.” My father simply told him, that we did not break his window. The man accused my father of lying. That is not something anyone who knew my father would contemplate doing.

I watched dad controlling his temper, with effort. He finally said, “Well, if you think we broke it, call the super and tell him, if you want.” The home owner stomped off to his car and left to make the call.

The home owner returned and was hiding around the corner of the house, eavesdropping on what we were saying. Dad knew he was there, so while one of his guys painted a window, he said “Be careful Ricky, that’s how you broke that other window.” At this point the man ran to his car to go tell the super that he knew we broke the window, because he heard my father say so.

The following day my father told us we were going to have some fun. There was another house, of the same model, under construction, about two miles away. Someone had shot all of the windows with bbs and they had been replaced. We took all of those windows back the original house and replaced its windows. We then waited for the owner to arrive.

The owner came right about five, as usual. As soon as he got close, we picked up rocks and began throwing them through every window in the house. He locked the car up, did a U-turn and took off. He returned about an hour later with the builder. By that time we had cleaned up all of the glass, replaced the widows, and were diligently working. The owner got out of his car, shaking his head. “I swear all of the windows were broken out. I swear it!” The builder just gave him an exasperated look and shook his head. The owner, head hanging, got back in his car and drove away.

The builder looked at my father, grinned, and said “I don’t know how you did it, but it was a good one. But please, don’t do it again.” Dad laughed also and just said “I don’t know what you mean.”