An Ordinary Mother
By Phil Shapiro
*
Katrina Katrinka was like any other ordinary mother with two kids, a station
wagon, and a 60 foot tall crane in her back yard. The crane just showed up
one morning. A construction company was building an apartment building
down the street. One day the company went bankrupt, and left their crane in
Mrs. Katrinka's back yard. They just went bankrupt, and left her with a 60
foot tall crane in her back yard.
Mrs. Katrinka didn't know what to do at first. But then she had an idea. She
called the sanitation department in her town to come around and pick up the
60 foot tall crane. If you have an old couch, an old table, an old refrigerator,
or an old washing machine, you can call the sanitation department, and
they'll come around and pick it up.
You can guess what the sanitation department had to say about Mrs.
Katrinka's crane. "Sorry, ma'am. We don't pick up 60 foot tall cranes. Old
couches, old tables, old refrigerators, and old washing machines are fine.
Large, 60 foot tall cranes are not fine."
Mrs. Katrinka was not the type of ordinary mother who lets a 60 foot tall
crane sit around in her back yard. No, sirree. Not that type of ordinary
mother at all.
So she bought a large wrench, and climbed up the tall 60 foot crane. She
carefully climbed out onto the horizontal part of the crane, and unbolted one
of the end sections. She happily climbed down and carried the steel section
into her basement.
Her neighbors peered over the fence, wondering what on earth could this
ordinary mother be doing with a steel section of crane in her basement.
What the neighbors didn't know was that Mrs. Katrinka also bought an
excellent power saw. This saw could cut through the toughest, hardest steel.
Day after day, Mrs. Katrinka would take one more section from the crane,
carrying it carefully down into her basement. And night after night, she cut
those sections up into little bits. These little bits of steel were easy enough
to hide in her regular trash.
Some of the bits she stuffed in empty cans of tuna fish. Other bits she
stuffed in the middle of over-ripe watermelons. And other bits she hid inside
old smelly socks.
But it's hard to hide a full 60 foot crane in your day to day trash. You could
hide a 20 foot crane, or a 30 foot crane. But a 60 foot crane is just too big to
easily hide in the trash.
So Mrs. Katrinka started painting the sections of crane she took down each
day. She painted them, and then welded them into interesting sorts of
sculptures. When her basement became too full of sculptures, she set the
sculptures out in her back yard.
It didn't take long for people to flock from all over the neighborhood to see
Mrs. Katrinka's sculptures. One day, one of her neighbors walked right up
her front steps and asked if she might buy one of the sculptures.
Well, Mrs. Katrinka didn't know what to say. She didn't make the sculptures
to sell. She made the sculptures because it's hard to hide all the bits of a 60
foot crane in your trash.
On the very day that she took down the last section of the crane, the man
who used to own the construction company came back to pick up his crane.
"Sorry, sir," Mrs. Katrinka said.
"The crane you left in my back yard is no longer here anymore. It's hiding in
empty cans of tuna fish, over-ripe watermelons, and old smelly socks. If you
want to put it back together, you'll have to go looking through lots of empty
tuna fish cans, over-ripe watermelons, and old socks."
"Well, ma'am," said the construction company man. "I really shouldn't have
left that 60 foot crane in your back yard. It wasn't the right thing to do, and
I'd like to apologize to you."
Mrs. Katrinka looked the man up and down. He looked as if he was genuinely
sorry for what he had done.
"Oh, all right," Mrs. Katrinka said. "If you'd like to take home some of the 60
foot crane you left in my back yard, it's sitting right over there in those six
sculptures."
"Six sculptures?" said the man, in wonder.
"Yes, six sculptures," replied Mrs. Katrinka. "Mrs. Olney down the street
bought the seventh sculpture last week for $200."
"Well, the least I can do is buy the other six sculptures, at the same price,"
the man whispered gently.
"No. I'm sorry. That won't do," replied Mrs. Katrinka. "I can't sell all six of
those sculptures. They mean too much to me now."
"But I tell you what. If you want to buy five of them, I won't complain too
loudly about that. You can't expect me to give up all my wonderful
sculptures to some stranger who left a 60 foot crane in my back yard."
"Yes, ma'am. It's too much to expect an ordinary mother to give up all six
sculptures she made from a 60 foot tall crane that a total stranger left in her
back yard."
As Mrs. Katrinka took the man's money, she laughed, "Besides, I need to
keep at least one sculpture to show my grandchildren. They'll never believe
this story if I didn't have at least one of the sculptures left to show them..."