HELP! A lesson in articulation that could save your life.

A true story that taught me an important lesson.

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Photo by Melissa Olson

When I was ten years old, I mowed lawns and shoveled snow from driveways for extra cash. By the time I was a teenager, this had grown to become a small business called Olson Odd Jobs, which I continued all through college.

I had a good reputation for doing quality work, but you’d have never known it by my equipment. I didn’t have tractors or power tools like many handymen have today. Worse, I didn’t even have a pickup truck. I lugged around my 24-foot extension ladder on the roof of my car. Now that I think back, it wasn’t even my ladder. It was Melissa’s father’s ladder, and it was rusty, bent, and in need of a proper burial. But it served its purpose since I didn’t have the money to buy my own.

One of the services I used to offer was cleaning rain gutters for homeowners. Depending upon where you live, you might call them eavestroughs. Gutter cleaning was a very popular service of mine since many homeowners don’t like heights. And cleaning out gutters involves climbing a ladder to the roof, scooping out smelly muck from the gutter, and making sure the pitch of the gutter properly flows water to the drains. It’s a dangerous and nasty job that homeowners are happy to pay someone to do for them.

The truth is that I had a phobia about heights myself, but gutter cleaning was my most lucrative service. When you’re struggling financially, you find ways to push through your fears.

The hardest part for me was getting back onto the ladder from the roof. Because I couldn’t see the ladder as I swung my leg over the roof, the anxiety of my phobia caused my legs to weaken and shake as I fished around for the ladder while hanging over the edge of the roof. For this reason, I normally had a helper when cleaning gutters who could verbally guide me from the ground as my leg searched for the ladder. Once I was back on the ladder, this helper held the ladder steady as I climbed down with my shaking legs.

One day I was cleaning gutters by myself, so instead of getting up on the roof to clean the gutters, I did everything from the ladder. This meant I had to keep moving the ladder every few feet as I worked my way down the gutter. It required more time to go up and down the ladder twenty times, but it was easier than getting back on the ladder from the roof without guidance from the ground.

I was having some difficulty this day because my future father-in-law’s ladder was so rusty. It was an extension ladder, which means it would extend to make it longer or shorter, but the rust was causing it to jam on me and not extend fully. I finally got it to the length I needed to reach the roof of this two-story house, and everything was moving along rather smoothly. But as I completed the final stretch of gutter along the back of the house, the lawn dipped down, forcing me to extend the length of the ladder.

I fought with the rust and extended the ladder a few feet above the gutter line. Anxious to be done with the job, I went up the ladder for the final cleaning.

As I scooped the muck out of the ladder and into a bucket I held, the ladder suddenly slid downward as if the lawn beneath me had collapsed. My entire body, while still standing on the ladder rail, quickly slid down more than two feet. As the ladder and my body descended in unison, my instant reaction was to grab hold of something to slow my fall. I let go of my bucket and grasped the edge of the rain gutter on my way down, which miraculously stopped the ladder from sliding further.

I realized that I must not have locked the ladder extension mechanism. Rather, the rust fooled me into believing it had locked. As I looked below me, I could see that the only thing holding the ladder in place was another rust spot.

My predicament was that most of my weight was now being held by the gutter as both hands were hanging onto it. If I attempted to climb down, I was sure the rust wouldn’t hold me. The other issue was that the ladder was now only an inch above the gutter. If it slid any more, both me and the ladder were sure to topple to the side or into the side of the house.

So there I was, both arms fully extended with my hands clutching the rain gutter while standing on this ladder that could begin escalating downward at any second. I wasn’t sure how secure the gutters were on the house or how long I could hold on. I needed to call for help, hoping someone in the neighborhood might hear me.

Knowing the homeowner wasn’t home, I remembered seeing a few people standing outside the next-door neighbor’s house when I first arrived, so I attempted to call them.

“Hello!” I yelled. “Is there anyone there? Anybody?”

I waited for someone to respond, but I got nothing.

I yelled louder, “Helloooow! Helloooow! Can anybody hear me?”

Once again, there was no response. That’s when I could feel the rain gutter bending from my weight, which got me to quickly change my approach.

“HELP! HELP! CAN SOMEONE HELP ME? I NEED HELP!” I screamed.

In three seconds, two men and a woman came running around the corner from next door.

“What’s wrong?” one guy asked.

“My ladder’s not locked and it’s falling beneath me. The only thing keeping it up is the rust.”

The man quickly stood under the upper extension of my ladder (the section that I was standing on) and locked his arms straight below each side of the ladder to give it support.

“I got it,” he yelled. “Climb down. I’ll hold it if I can.”

I had no idea what would happen once I let go of the rain gutter and put all my weight back on the ladder, but I had no other choice but to try. I closed my eyes and released my grip. The ladder held. I looked down to see the man using all his strength to keep the ladder from sliding toward the ground. I carefully but quickly climbed down the ladder until it was safe to jump onto the lawn.

My legs were shaking so much from fear and exhaustion that I had to sit down on the grass. I thanked the neighbors profusely for rescuing me, especially the man who wedged himself underneath my ladder, risking his own safety for mine.

“I’m lucky you guys finally heard me,” I said. “I’d been yelling for help, but nobody could hear me.”

The woman walked over and kneeled beside me. She gently placed one hand on my shoulder, then looked me dead in the eye and said to me in a lovely Irish accent, “Listen son, and let this be a lesson to ya, never yell hello when what ya mean is help. Ya gotta ask for exactly what ya need in life, not be beating around da bush using words ya don’t really mean.”

I hope you enjoyed this true story from my youth that taught me a lesson for life. If you learned a lesson about articulation in your own life, I’d love to hear about it in the comments.

With love,
Bob

I’d love to hear from you in the comments!

If you’re enjoying my articles, please click the ❤️ button above so more people can discover it on Substack, thanks! (It really helps.)

Bob Olson is the host of Afterlife TV, author of two books, Answers About The Afterlife and The Magic Mala, and creator of the directory of psychics and mediums, BestPsychicDirectory.com. His latest venture is Bob Olson Connect, where you can read Bob’s articles before they become books.

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