Human Stories
Tales of an AirBnB Host
Guest of the Week #3 — Jeremy the Hot Worker
Dinner guests and overnight guests alike frequently ask me to share the strangest, oddest, or funniest story involving a guest. I’ve got a few.
Jeremy was over 6 feet tall, very muscular and always had a smile and a joke.
He quickly made himself comfortable in my home, and made everyone else in the house feel comfortable with him as well.
He was that guy who worked on the projects where there was a desperate need. Where large regions were out of electric power, typically due to a storm — a hurricane, a blizzard, a fire — a natural disaster.
He also did hot work.
That’s where you are one with the power line. Kind of like that joke, “What did the Zen Master say to the hot dog vendor?”
Make me one with everything.
So when Jeremy would come home after work, his tales of this risk he took everyday were mesmerizing. The fact that he could laugh about his work was incredible.
He told us how he was a star football player in high school. I think he said he was a quarterback. But what do I know? I don’t follow football. American, or otherwise.
A friend asked him if he wanted to make boatloads of money. And of course, he said yes.
They told him who to call, how to get trained, and he just followed along by the playbook.
He told us how dangerous it was. Our eyes must have bugged out of our heads. Then he told us how much money he made. I’m sure our eyes bugged out more.
I couldn’t help thinking I was NOT charging him enough for his room.
But it makes sense really, for him to be paid exorbitantly large sums of money — it’s really physically demanding and dangerous work, and work that he cannot continue doing for decades, the way an office desk worker could do. So he’s got to have a plan. And save his money for when he can’t do it any longer.
He joked and said, people call him “lumpy”. Evidently it’s an inside joke among the hot workers. Apparently, when you are working on those high tension, high voltage lines and the juice is flowing through your body, over some long period of time, you begin to form lumps. Non-cancerous — just……lumps. Protrusions.
Not to be confused with “Lumpy Skin Disease,” which is a zoological affectation.
Jeremy had no lumps to prove his nickname. But he had another side effect that was even more serious.
He had stinky feet.
He was so happy, so friendly, so funny and entertaining — he just also had the worst smelling feet I have ever experienced in six decades of life. It was bad.
We have a habit of leaving our shoes at the door.
Jeremy was SO good at following rules. I had to love him for that.
It’s the one and only time I wish a guest was capable of breaking the house rules. But you see, if you do hot work, the last thing you are going to do is break the rules. It’s a matter of life and death.
So night after night, we’d laugh and chat, then sit down and watch a little TV.
It really didn’t matter what seat I would sit in. If Jeremy was on the couch, there was no safe zone.
He stayed with us about a month. Toward the end of his stay, I just couldn’t take it anymore. I went back to the bathroom and got a towel. I came out with the towel, and draped it over Jeremy’s feet.
He had a child like look of wonder on his face. As in — what kind of weird Wiccan ritual is this?
I laughed and said, “Jeremy, I love you man. But I just can’t take it anymore. You have got to do something about those feet.”
It was that moment where everyone in the living room looked at everyone else, looked at Jeremy, at me, at each other.
Then Jeremy busted out laughing, and broke the tension.
Turns out that working on high voltage electric lines, managing all that energy, pretty much qualifies you to diffuse any energetic tension in a small space like a living room.
Everyone in the house was sad when Jeremy got the call to go to the next big assignment.
Maybe some day he’ll return. And I’ll have the foresight to take a photo of him.
Every time the power goes out in a big storm, or natural event, anywhere in the country, I think of Jeremy and his stinky feet.
And I hope he’s still playing it safe, playing by the rules.
Did you know there is a National Lineworker Appreciation Day in America?
Hey this is a series!
And so are these!
Susan Brearley is a brilliant strategist and editor. She’s the owner/operator of the MuddyUm Writer’s Self Help Clinic.
She’s been writing comedy for about 2 weeks.
