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      Anna Bell was a hundred and five years old when I knew her. She lived at the Village Christian Apartments where I worked.

      On the bottom floor of one of the buildings there was a large fellowship hall with attached kitchen for special events. I was sitting next to Anna Bell during one of these social functions when she turned to me and said, “Larry, I thought you were 26 years old, but somebody told me you were 50.”

      I responded, “Well I’m 37.”

      But I got to thinking later, that from her perspective of 105; there probably wasn’t much difference between 26, 37 or 50.

      In some ways, everything is relative.

 

     So anyway, one of my jobs there was working a regular Monday–Friday 40 hour work week as assistant maintenance man. I also had the title of Assistant Manager, but all that really meant was that I was on call 24 hours a day which gave me an apartment to live in on the property.

      One day the main maintenance man came to me and said, “When you get a chance, go check out Anna Bell’s furnace closet. She claims she’s hearing a noise in it. I’ve checked it out and I don’t think there’s anything wrong, but just to make her happy why don’t you go take a look too.”

      A little bit later I spotted Anna Bell in the courtyard sitting on a bench. I went over and sat down beside her and said, “Anna Bell, I understand you’ve got a problem in your apartment.”

      She said, “Yes, there’s a noise coming from my furnace closet. It happens twice a day. Just before eight in the morning it goes beep, beep, beep. And then again in the evening just before eight it goes beep, beep, beep again.”

      I said, “Well Anna Bell, that sounds like an alarm clock.”

      We went up to her apartment and sure enough, located right next to the furnace closet was a table with a beautiful electronic clock on top. I walked over and set the alarm to go off—beep, beep, beep.

      Anna Bell got all excited, pointing at it saying, “That’s it! That’s it!”

      I turned off the alarm, explained what had probably happened and from then on as far as she was concerned, I could do no wrong.

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