Monday morning began warm and wet, with storms all around. At the office, the generator we have behind our building was rumbling loudly as I walked by it on my way to our back door. I am far from an expert on generators but I knew this one wasn’t sounding quite right. And the only reason it was running anyway was because something else was not.
Then I saw that the back door was propped open, which is always a sign that something mechanical was malfunctioning again, like the AC. So the power had gone out, which explained why the generator was straining to keep up.
But as uncomfortable as it was at least we had power for the computers and some lights, so we could work; then Amy, “The Data Queen,” figured out a place to plug in the coffee pot, which made almost everything all right with the world.
Not long after the pot proceeded to perk, it stopped, along with the remaining lights and the computers. We were cast back into the dark ages, because the little generator that could, found out he really couldn’t.
I walked outside into the alley next to the building, where at least the rain had stopped. There was a pleasant breeze and others from the office were enjoying it. The conversation was of castles in the Ozarks and survivalists. I tried to join in by saying that a flyer on my car told the world would end on May 21.
“This year?” Jacob asked.
“That’s what it said.”
That brought a silence of contemplation to the once happy group and I felt bad about even telling them, so I walked back inside to the stale dark.
I called Fred, who is always entertaining and because I needed no light to hear him.
“Hey bud.”
“I got three things,” Fred said. “Let me begin with the nice stuff – good job to the young lady golfer from Arkansas.”
“I assume you mean Stacy Lewis?”
“Right. OK, the next thing is way to go Bev Lewis.”
“I assume you mean Gary Blair?”
“You know I do. Bev basically fired him as the head coach of the LadyBacks and now he’s taking Texas A&M to the championship game.”
“Agreed, what’s your third thing?”
“Remember how I always said that the moon landing was a hoax?”
“I guess.”
“C’mon, you know I always have said that.”
“I guess.”
“Well a NASA scientist has come out and said the whole thing was staged by Nixon.”
“That makes sense. Tricky Dick.”
“Not only that but the wife of Stanley Kubrick says that he directed it.”
“Nixon?”
“No, Kubrick.”
“They needed a director?”
“According to Mrs. Kub-rick.”
“Well, if you can’t believe her I don’t know who you can believe. Gotta go now bud, the power is still out here at the office.”
“Nixon probably had something to do with that too,” Fred said.
“Wouldn’t put it past him. See ya.”
Back in the darkness I found some other co-workers who were sitting by the partially opened front door, where dim light from an overcast morning offered a little illumination.
“Want to tell ghost stories?” I asked, trying not to sound as apocalyptic as I had in the alley.
“Whoooo has my golden arm?” someone howled from the dark.
“Tell that one,” one of the younger people asked.
No one volunteered so I began.
“Once upon a time there was a poor old man who lived in the backwoods of Tennessee. One day he met an old lady and they decided to marry. Also, the lady had a golden arm, which I guess was more common back then. You don’t see it so much anymore today.
“Anyway, they were very happy until one day when the old lady became very ill.”
“Probably an infection from her golden arm,” someone said from the dark.
“No, I think it was the gout, but that’s not the point. They sent for the doctor who came and said she didn’t have long, so the woman called her husband over to her bedside.
‘My only wish is that you bury me with my golden arm,’ she told him.
‘You’re kidding?’ Said her husband.
“No, and if you don’t it won’t go well for you,’ were her last words.
So the faithful and creeped out husband did as she asked, that is until one dark and stormy night when he dug her up and got the arm.
So she haunted him forever saying, ‘Whoooooo has my golden arm?’”
“That’s it?” Someone asked.
“Yeah.”
“I saw Andy Griffith tell it on one of his shows once.”
“That right?”
“Yeah. He tells it better.”
“Well I guess that’s why he had a show and I’m standing here in the dark with you.”