An Ordinary Day

It was a gray overcast day as I began my tasks to complete. One of these was to inspect and show a property that my family owned in the north shore town of Evanston Il. Things started out simple enough. Little did I know...

Coral Reef 1 and I arrived at the building and we began our inspection tour. We started in the basement and worked our way up through the first floor, the second floor, then finally the roof. Reef was doing his usual run through to check for intruders and just to be generally "nosey". I'd wanted to check the roof as we were considering possibly constructing a deck up there. There was a vertical shaft to accommodate the windows of the neighboring building. Reef began to walk around and I wasn't watching him too closely. As he went to look down the window shaft his feet slipped on their tile surfaces and down he went. I heard a noise and when I turned to look he was gone.

I thought, "where the heck did he go?" He would have had to pass me to leave the roof, but he was gone. I ran to the shaft and there he was, thirty feet down at the bottom walking around smelling things like nothing had happened. I couldn't believe that he fell all that way and didn't get hurt. Aside from being in shock, I had to think of how to get him out.

I ran to a nearby hardware store, but the only thing they had to help me was some marine plastic rope for tying up boats. It had a slippery texture and did not tie well. As I ran back I asked a young lady named Karen to assist me as I wasn't sure that once I went down the shaft, I would be able to get back up. Its hard to imagine that this lovely young lady would follow a strange man with a "rope", up on to a lonely roof, but my obvious genuine panic must have been reassuring to her and she agreed to assist me.

When we got to the top of the roof stairs she asked me, "so where is your dog"? I pointed to the shaft and said "down there." When I said that she had a look on her face like "hmmm maybe I shouldn't be up here", as she hesitantly went over to look. Her expression went from fear of her own possible jeopardy, to wide - eyed concern as she gasped for air and exclaimed "oh my God".

I tied the rope to the stair railing and began to climb down. As I expected the rope's slickness was sliding through my hands and I had to use the walls and vertical ductwork to slow my decent.

Upon my arrival at the bottom Reef greeted me enthusiastically and I was literally beside myself. I checked him for injuries and gratefully found that there were none. Then I began to consider our dilemma.

Using the rope to create a harness for Reef was the first priority. After which I proceeded to climb up the shaft wall. My hands again kept slipping down the rope so it was again necessary to use the walls and ducts almost exclusively to negotiate the wall.

When I arrived at the top my hands were blistered and cut and I was filthy and exhausted. Karen looked at me with non - believing amusement as I crawled back up over the tiles. Then with her help I proceeded to hoist Reef up the wall. He neither struggled, nor squirmed as we raised him from the abyss. At that time I offered to reward Karen or feed her but she declined. Out of the goodness of her heart seemed to be the program.

After our ordeal was over Reef and I went to a nearby park to play frisbee which he did with his usual artful enthusiasm, like nothing had happened at all.

I guess I owed him one... After all, he'd certainly saved me enough times.