Survey says... What was I thinking!?

Thank You, Father, for not letting me die.

So in case you've never noticed, I have a habit of sometimes kicking off my sandals whilst walking through the grass on a nice day. But not just kicking them off; I like to send them flying. It's led to some fun times, like the other day when Ms. Grady and I were walking and I kicked up my sandal and got it caught in a tree. I ended up climbing the tree and shaking the branch mercilessly until it yielded my sandal. Ms. Grady thought I was crazy and hoped I had learned my lesson.

Well... I hadn't.

Today I was walking her back to her dorm near the old bell tower when I got the urge to kick off my sandal. I saw the bell tower and thought, "Surely not..." So I kicked my sandal up in the air, and sure enough, it landed smack in the middle of the tower's ledge, about two and a half stories up. Ms. Grady about had a fit, and so I started throwing my other sandal up to knock the first off the ledge. I guess at this point Murphy's law kicked in, because by the third throw I had both sandals stuck in the top of the bell tower. Ms. Grady proceeded to remind me that these were the sandals my loving brother gave me for Christmas. The next thing I grabbed was a rock, followed by two large sticks. Before it was over I had disturbed several pidgeons and had three or four things stuck at the top of the bell tower along with my sandals. And it was getting dark.

Now being a stubborn male, I don't think I could have born the shame of asking maintenance or campus safety for help, so I pondered possible solutions and came up with three. The tower is quite old and made from stones that I imagine were just lying around the old farm. They were cemented together but had been worn over the years, making decent hand- and foot-holds. So I started to climb, but about 5 feet up decided it would be a little too difficult to get back down once I made it up (the holds were not as good as I thought they were), so I aborted that operation. That left two choices: get a ladder, or get some rope. Neither were forthcoming. But I remembered something close: my 50-ft CAT-5 ethernet cable which I plug my laptop into the school network with. I went to my room and untangled the cord and got a hanger to help things out. After a couple of tries with the cord-and-hanger and some explaining to Ms. Grady's relatives (who happened to be walking by) about what we were doing in the bell tower at night, we managed to get one sandal down. In the process, however, we shifted the other sandal to a place where the cord was pretty much useless to bring it down. DOH!

There was only one solution left. Setting his face as firm as the stones he rested his dusty hands on, the Gourd-man began to climb. The first few feet on the way up had been recemented recently, but above that point the original mortar was in place and made for better gripping. Slowly, carefully, and with several 'Honey, please be careful's resonating from below, the Gourd-man worked his way up the dark, web-infested interior wall of the tower. After several minutes he reached the top, and grabbing a steel strut which supported the massive old bell (which was still intact), plucked his brother's sandal from the ledge. Then, letting the sandal drop to the ground below, he began the calculating descent to safety. Going down was much more difficult than going up, but after a few minutes and much support from his beloved, he reached a point close enough to the ground to let go and dropped softly to the stones below him.

Yeah, I've climbed the old bell tower. My Lipscomb exploits are now complete. I think I'll take on Everest next... OK, maybe not. But I did learn something from all this:

Pidgeon poop smells?

Well, yeah, that's true, but what I was really getting at is I think I'm finally ready to break the sandal-kicking habit. Good night everybody!