One - Procurer, Pimp or Public Service
It was one of the few things that I had tried, that I just couldn't do on my own since my accident. Whenever I wanted to get in the hot tub, I was supposed to put a plastic bag over my cast to keep it dry. I just couldn't get a good seal around my arm above the cast with just one hand.
I guess I should explain a little. About a month ago, I was just starting a shower before my oldest daughter was coming over to discuss some legal papers I needed to handle, when the phone rang. Since I wasn't wet yet, except for my feet, I jumped out to answer thinking she may be canceling coming over, but it was my second daughter who had an issue to discuss. So I told her to call my youngest daughter and have her come over too and we could all go out for a meal.
When I went to get back in the shower, I slipped. Well, I was of course nude for the shower, and my daughters were the first ones to find me. It was a little embarrassing when I noticed that they hadn't covered me up at all and were all getting a full view of their old man. I broke my forearm, cracked a rib, and had major bruising down one side of my body. I had also put a goose egg on my head from the fall and so had gone to the hospital for the cast and a night of observation.
While there, I had drifted off from some pain medication, and when I had awakened, it was to hear my daughters having a discussion about my package and the waste of it no longer being used since my wife had passed about 2 years earlier. I just kept silent and listened to their discussion until one noticed a movement I made and broke up the discussion. I hadn't known that my wife had told my one daughter the story of the use of my skills that my wife had found quite a few years earlier.
She had started a women's business club and one of her friends in the club had needed some help breaking out of a destructive relationship. My job had been to help the girl re-discover her self-esteem and get out of that abusive relationship. My daughters didn't know that my wife had me provide that service to quite a few other friends of hers over the years since then, at least until shortly before I lost her.
When that happened, I pretty much lost interest in anything that wasn't something needed by my daughters. Even though Barb is 30 and Lexie and Sophie are both in their mid-twenties, we are pretty close. One or more of them call just about every day, and I see them either separately or together just about every week. In fact, Barb comes over each Friday evening since my accident so I can get in the hot tub and she can start to relax into her weekend.
Barb had come over tonight and helped me get the plastic bag on my arm before we hopped in the tub while we talked. She was telling me that we needed to handle some more paperwork that I had in the safety deposit box at her bank. I could drop in on Monday to get the items out of the box so we could process them and sign them so they could be submitted.
She said the bank examiners were coming in starting Monday also, so she may have to have one of her assistants help me if she had to be with the examiners. We talked a little more about just what papers had to be handled and she said she'd have a listing of which items to pull out of the box just in case she couldn't help me herself.
Then she said she had almost forgotten; she was supposed to take her assistant out for lunch on Monday for her anniversary at the bank. She asked if I could make it there between 11:00 and 11:30 so I would finish at just about noon and I could carry them off to the Chinese restaurant out on the bypass, so she wouldn't have to take the extra time to do the parking thing, in and out of the garages and such. She said she'd spring for my lunch if I'd act as chauffeur; of course she knew I wouldn't turn her down.
When Barb started telling me that Janet, the assistant she was taking to lunch was her same age and that she was a pretty attractive girl, I knew that this was the first attempt to get me out of my monk's existence and maybe help out one of her co-workers in the process. Of course I didn't tell Barb that I knew about the plan that she and her sisters had for me. I would just go along with what they planned as they revealed it. Hey, it had been two years and even though I had loved my wife Caroline more than anyone else on the planet, that long of a dry spell was starting to get on my nerves. Hell, Caroline would have been yelling at me to get out there a year ago.
So there I was on Monday morning, shaved and showered and dressed in business casual, waiting at my house until time to leave for the bank so I would arrive at the correct time. I thought back to Sunday afternoon when my Daughter Lexie, the orthopedic nurse, had stopped in to take a quick look at my cast and to have a little talk. It seems that she had talked with Barb on Saturday and although she said she probably shouldn't pass on the information, she thought that I should know. It seems that Janet, Barb's assistant, had just gone through a bad breakup with her boyfriend and she suggested that I should be extra nice to Janet when I saw her.
I couldn't resist teasing Lexie a little. "Now Lexie, you know that I don't ever lie to anyone about anything when I talk with them. I will be nice to Janet because she is Barb's co-worker, but I won't be extra nice to her if I don't find her to be nice and interesting too... Of course, I haven't met a woman yet who I didn't find nice and interesting."
"Oh, Daddy, you got me there. I thought you were going to tell me to butt out. I know that you treat every woman you meet as though she were a queen. It was silly of me to think you needed to be reminded to be nice. Everyone I know has told me one time or another that you were the best man they had ever seen."
So I arrived and met with Barb at just about 11:20 and she walked me to the vault area to let me get my box. But before we could turn the keys to remove my box, an assistant came running in to tell Barb that there was another question from the examiners. Barb turned to me and said that everything had just been crazy this morning. It seemed that one of the examiners had found some problem first thing even before the bank opened, and the bank president had sent out a memo that any question that an examiner had, must be answered immediately. She had been interrupted three times already today to provide assistance.
Barb introduced Janet and asked if Janet could help while she ran to resolve this latest crisis. Of course, she said she would get back as quickly as she could. So this was the girl I was supposed to be nice to... It wouldn't be any problem at all. Janet was dressed in a pretty light-blue button up blouse with a dark blue knee length skirt. She was about an inch shorter than me in her low black heels. Her hair was shoulder length with a slight reddish cast and her smile was warm and genuine, not just professional courteous.
When Janet noticed my cast, she offered to help me carry my box into the private room that the bank had for the box owner to access their box. Policy required the employee to leave the room after helping the owner put the box on the table unless the owner requested assistance of some kind. Since my cast covered most of my hand and up just past my elbow, I asked if Janet would stay and help me pull out certain of the papers for removal since trying to sort through one handed would have taken me twice as long. So she flipped through the envelopes reading the labels as I looked at my listing for those I needed to pull.
