Upcoming WordPlay

Photo of Maureen, Kathy, and Under Construction classmate Mary Struble Deery reviewing Mary's photos
by fellow Under Construction member Lisa Kunkleman.

Kathryn Thorson Gruhn grew up in the small town of Blooming Prairie in southern Minnesota. She moved to the South with her husband in the late seventies and currently lives on a horse farm in Tryon, North Carolina. She has two grown daughters and two grandchildren.

Before becoming a writer, she was a speech pathologist for 35 years, working primarily with children ages birth to seven, which prompted her to create the My Baby Compass program. My Baby Compass is a program for parents and caregivers of children Birth to Seven that promotes the early identification of developmental delays. She recently entered in a joint venture to get My Baby Compass evidence-based and into an App that will be available worldwide. For more information, visit www.mybabycompass.com.

Kathy is a bestselling author with the first edition of Soul for Success, for which she received an Editor’s Choice award.

She has been telling funny stories for many years and was finally prompted by Jack Canfield, the Chicken Soup of the Soul creator, to gather them in a book after he learned that writing them down was one way she handled the grief of losing her husband of forty-three years. Kathy's greatest gift is making people laugh through her stories and jokes.

 

 

 

I was on my way to a pharmaceutical meeting at a fine hotel in downtown Charlotte, North Carolina. My husband’s research department was looking for new clinical trials and we were meeting with CEO’s of a number of companies who were looking for venues in the area of Rheumatoid Arthritis. I was juggling my parental duties and my role as lead Clinical Coordinator. As usual, I needed to be at two places at the same time.

When I arrived at the hotel, I realized that, in my haste, I’d forgotten my purse. No problem, I thought, I can get some cash for parking from Bill. He’s going to be at the meeting.

Afterward, as I was leaving, my husband handed me five dollars for the parking. I whizzed the car down the parking ramp to the attendant on duty as I was in a hurry to get to my daughter’s Open House and PTA meeting.

I looked for the parking cost on the lit-up kiosk: it read 7.15.

In a fervor, I feverishly looked for change in the glove compartment, under the seats, in the console, and even the trunk. I managed to put together a number of quarters, nickels, and chocolate-covered dimes that had no doubt been under the seat for a decade.

Cars were now lined up behind me, the PTA was starting in just a few minutes, and I was still twenty-two cents short. Sitting in his concrete box, the parking attendant reached out with his unusually short arms and carefully took my money. Because his hands were so small, it took a while for him to take all the change. He placed it on the shelf in front of him. I’d given him all the coins first, hoping to plead my case before forking over the five-dollar bill. He had counted every penny when I finally handed him the five dollars.

“Why didn’t you give me this in the first place?” he asked.

“I owe $7.15,” I replied, pointing to the kiosk, which now flashed 7:22.

“That’s the time! You owe $4.50.”

He was laughing so hard, he leaned back to take a deep breath. Then he fell off his chair and disappeared. I waited. He didn’t reappear. Leaning out of my car, I peered through his window, only to see him lying on the floor next to a wheelchair. He was struggling to get up, but he didn’t have the use of his legs.

My first response——as if he was a boy drowning—was to dive in. I went through my window, pulled my torso through his window, and leaned over to give him my hand. At first, he couldn’t reach it because his arms were so short. I wiggled a little closer.

That’s when I started to feel the cool breeze on my upper thighs. I was backing my torso a few inches out the window when my dress caught on the metal ledge just short of my derriere.

“I’m stuck. My skirt is caught on the metal piece of the window,” I told him.

He giggled. “Oh my, I can’t imagine what the people behind your car are thinking.”

“It’s not funny. Give me your hands and boost me up.”

I grabbed his hands with both of mine. His biceps were large, giving me the confidence that he was strong enough to help me. As he was trying to push me back out the window, all of a sudden my head landed on his chest, with my bare legs halfway out the window and my dress over my head.

I was stuck. He was stuck.

“Oh, my,” he giggled over and over again, flapping his arms and hands back and forth.

“Stop laughing and let’s figure out how we’re going to get out of this mess,” I said, wondering if he could hear my words that were being muffled by my dress and slip.

Soon I heard a voice. “Are you okay in there? What’s going on?”

“Help us!” I yelled, “I’m stuck. My dress is caught on the metal ledge.”

I felt a tug on my dress and someone’s arms around my waist. “Bend your knees and I’ll let you down slowly,” the kind man said.

With the grace of an elephant, I managed to wad my legs into a ball, torn dress and all, and stand up inside the parking attendant’s station. The man then helped the parking attendant back into his wheelchair. As I was rearranging my hair and dress; there I was, face to face, with the CEO of the pharmaceutical company that I’d just met upstairs at the dinner party.

“Hello, we meet again,” he said. I froze in disbelief and muttered something unintelligible. This wasn’t the image I’d had of our next meeting. Oh no! I thought. We’ll never get the research contract now.

“Thank you,  I’ll be on my way,” I said, flipping my hair back over my shoulder as if this was a normal occurrence in my daily routine.

Driving away, I briefly looked in my rear view mirror at the line of cars waiting to pay their bill. What was on THEIR minds? I couldn’t help laughing as I replayed the events in my head and envisioned the parking attendant and CEO arriving home and saying, ‘You’re not going to believe what happened to me at work today!’

Oh, by the way, the CEO must have had a sense of humor. We did get the contract.