A Sudden Burning Need To Be Helpful

This is a story my mom told me that happened when she was in college and lived in a trailer park. Just to head off the comments, I don’t want to get into a discussion about whether what she said was RIGHT. (She clearly thought so, but we don’t always agree.) I just thought this was FUNNY.

On a Sunday morning in winter, Mom woke up to discover that the heating in her trailer wasn’t working and the trailer was already uncomfortably cold. Her landlord did his own maintenance, so she called his number and got his wife, the landlady.

Mom: “My heater’s gone out and I’m freezing. Can [Landlord] please come fix it?”

Landlady: “He’ll come out Monday afternoon. He doesn’t work on Sundays.”

Mom: “I wouldn’t ask him to, normally, but this is an emergency.”

Landlady: *Snottily* “You’ll just have to wait. My husband doesn’t work on the Lord’s day.”

Mom: “It’s below freezing outside and my heater doesn’t work. You tell your husband that if he isn’t here fixing it in the next hour, I’m going to start a fire to keep warm. And remind him that this trailer doesn’t have a fireplace.”

He was there within an hour.