Halloween was three weeks away. I had just spent six weeks painting. The new garage and den we had added to our house had created a flat roof that we’d surrounded on three sides with a waist high wooden fence. The contractor had extended the fence across the front of house creating an eighteen inch cat walk, and adding another 20 feet of fence to paint. My painting uniform had been a pair of extra large bib overalls and a blue and white striped long sleeve shirt. Both were well splattered with oil based white paint. I could throw them away or I could make a dummy farmer to decorate our pumpkin patch for Halloween. I chose the latter.
I stuffed the overalls and shirt with straw and old paint rags. I sewed black rubber gloves to the sleeves and the shirt to the waistband. A partially deflated soccer ball wrapped in a tee shirt and sewed to the shirt collar with black marker eyes, nose and mouth completed my dummy. “Maybe I can position this guy on the roof deck over the front door”, I mused to myself. With that thought in mind I dragged Mr. Farmer through the house, upstairs and out the French doors onto the flat roof. Over the front door, I tried him sitting, standing, and straddling the newly painted fence – nothing seemed to work. “Back to the pumpkin patch idea”, I concluded and rather than lug the dummy back through the house, I threw him into the side yard and went inside.
As I neared the kitchen I heard my lovely wife; was she chanting? I entered the kitchen and saw her at the door to the side yard. “Oh my God, Oh my God, Oh my God” she was panting. I walked up behind her, “What’s the matter” I asked. She jumped, turned and gasped “I thought you’d fallen off the roof. Oh I could kill you!” Outside the dummy lay in a heap. Except for the white head it did look like me. We laughed until we cried.
kongoboken 