The Things They Saved

First, a shout out to all my pals from Eastern Michigan. Stay warm!

And now to the news....

I was with a group gutting houses yesterday and I was thinking how much you can learn about someone by their possessions. The person who had lived in one side of the double house we were working on had been elderly, as the "Sexy to Sexty" joke book, a few canes and the general look of the clothing showed. She was religious, as evidenced from the crucifixes and saint statutes from the muck. She had a sense of humor which occasionally was a bit on the risque side, something demonstrated by some of the mugs she had in her cabinet and some other items we found. (I made her, in my head, be an Italian Catholic. Then I found her mail and learned I was right.) She was an old time New Orleanian who saved copies of The Times Picayune and had glasses from the defunct Jax Brewery and a fair share of Mardi Gras beads.

So I was very philosophical as I dumped this woman's life's possessions on a curb. (Yes, it had sat untouched since Katrina. Glasses and such still had water in them.) What would someone say about me if Philadelphia flooded and a team had to come in and empty out my home? (Thank God Philadelphia will never flood like that, by the way, because I just imagine the absolute horror I would feel at having people all over my stuff. On another gutting outing a while back, we were tearing down the closet shelves in a teenager's bedroom when we noticed that the flood waters had glued a photo of a barebreasted woman to the bottom of one of them. We carried out the shelf, woman intact. "Nobody has any secrets anymore," one friend observed.) I was very philosophical.

Then we started emptying out the other side of the double.

A man had lived there, an elderly one who had served in the military. He liked his guns, as evidenced by the boxes of ammo and many guns we found. He was a cop or a pervert, as the handcuffs and dirty magazines we uncovered showed.

Standard stuff, right?

Now imagine you're me, in a closet, pulling out boxes. And you open one and find these metal things shaped like grape clusters. And being me, and Mardi Gras minded, you immediately think this must be a souvenir from the Krewe of Bacchus or something like that. Then you look closer. And you're holding a hand grenade.

An entire box of them.

I remained calm. "Oh, my," I said to the college students working around me. "I believe these are hand grenades. I think I will carry them out of the house now. La la." One girl shrieked. The boys just looked intrigued. I gingerly transported the box outside and walked up to one of the project coordinators.

"Hand grenades," I said.

"Put 'em by the truck," she replied, unfazed.

I would later learn that such finds were common. In fact, a special crew later came out to collect the guns, ammo, and the grenades. (Which, it turned out, weren't live. They were practice grenades from WW II and Vietnam, the experts told me. They were the exact weight of live grenades so the grenade tosser could practice the craft. The guys told me I was lucky they were just practice ones, because the salt water that flooded the city could have eaten away at the pin and, without the pin, I would have 3 to 5 seconds before the grenade would explode. "Would it at least tick?" I asked. "No," they said. If I heard anything, it would be the blast, and then it would be too late.)

I went back to work emptying the closet. More guns, more ammo, some knives. La la. Things are going smoothly.

And then I saw something that terrified me more than any explosive could: God's. Biggest. Roach.

This thing was big, Africa big. It could have stood up on its little roach hind legs and had a face to face conversation with me. Only my face would have been contorted in horror while the roach would have calmly described ways it could bury itself in my hair.

I didn't remain calm. With a "Hi-YA!" type shout, I slammed my foot on the ground, aiming to hit Sr. Cucaracha. He nimbly avoided me. I tried again, and missed again.

And that told me something: Get out of that room. Escape while you still can.

All in all, I think I had an easier time handling the grenades.