The Case Of The Missing ... ~ Early Morning Thoughts

It was something out of an Agatha Christie mystery novel. Now, there certainly wasn't the "clickety-clackety" of a train track or mysterious visions in dark tunnels or various instruments of death being looked over by a Belgian ~ but it was a mystery none-the-less.


We had hired a maintenance man for the complex ~ he worked for a week then mysteriously (OK ~ not so mysteriously) disappeared. I was awakened Sunday morning at 4:30am by someone telling me that my maintenance man was bleeding all over the road, and that I needed to come out and see what was going on - or what had happened at the least.


Not being at my best at 4:30am, unless it's by choice (OK ~ I'll draw a curtain of discretion about early morning awakenings!), I was less than thrilled about being drawn out of the confines of my apartment to something that was going to involve blood, flood or fire.


He, evidently, decided to intervene in an argument that was occurring on the street. The two people (one male and one female) thought that his intervention was 1) annoying and 2) not necessary ~ did what amounted to a smack down. This, according to initial reports, involved a cut on the head and being slightly shaken up. One thing I have learned over the years ~ make sure that you really are needed to get in the middle of an argument, or BOTH parties of the argument are very apt to turn on you, and you will come out the worse for wear.


My maintenance man had ~ as far as I knew ~ a head cut (which always looks worse than it is) and was slightly banged up.

The last I saw of him was as he was being spirited away in an ambulance. I really had no idea that the next couple of days were going to be as a James Bond movie (remember which one involved taking someone away in an ambulance?) without the car and gadgets to go with it. It seemed as if he had dropped off the face of the earth ~ or at least off the face of my complex.

I found out today, it was far more serious and injurious. He had a broken (not sprained) ankle, and the surgeons last night had to move tendons from the leg to repair tendon damage ~ to say nothing of the plate and screws that were now in his ankle.

Finally, today we got the "rest of the story" and realized that he was not damaged beyond recognition, nor was he incarcerated for the long term.


By now, I was convinced that the "Twilight Zone" had overcome me, and nothing was as it seemed. Because he had disappeared with the keys, I had spent $95 petty cash to get the locks re-done (which he had had the keys attached to his belt) and tried to make sense of what had happened. However, not knowing where he was and/or what had happened to him I was basically at a loss.

As I found out today, his cell phone had also disappeared during the altercation, and all his phone numbers were in the phone. Having faced a similar situation recently when my phone battery literally "died" and I couldn't get any numbers from it ~ I could understand completely.

So now, I have a maintenance man in the hospital facing rehabilitation and wanting to work. This should prove an interesting combination.

And yet, life and the complex goes on ~ So, if you know of a maintenance man needing work ... just let me know...