No Good Deed Goes Unpunished

I had just come home from LA after installing a new server, and was preparing to sit down to a nice hot cup of Earl Grey when there was a loud knocking on the door.

At the door was Father Clarke with two volunteers. "I'm in a hurry but I'll leave this on your doorstep", he said in a loud Brian Blessed voice.

He is always in a hurry as it is a ploy to get all of his work done free. There is always a wedding or a funeral that he has to rush off to and consequently something to dump on my doorstep.

"Lads get this stuff indoors!" he ordered his volunteers, who instantly surged into life and began shifting two gigantic loudspeakers, wires, and bags of things that I can only describe as clutter.

"Hey wait a minute! Is my place suddenly Grand Central Station? What on Earth is all this?" I ask.

"It’s the Church amplifier, it’s not working." He says, as if that was supposed to explain everything.

"Take it to an electronics repair shop then", I snapped back, however it was no good, because he had used the "it's-here-now-and-too-much-trouble-to-take-back" manoeuvre. He knows that I am into what he calls the "godless" art of Feng Shui, and since I hate clutter, I will fix it quickly just to recover my open clean minimalist space.

"Mother, Mary, Joseph... I just do not know what to do. We paid £500 pounds for this, and the Church doesn’t have the money to replace it." He says whilst massaging his back with one hand.

Ah, the sympathy manoeuvre I think to myself. He has used that once before a few years ago, I did not think he would use it so soon again.

"Well if you want the amplifier fixed you’re speaking to the wrong people." I say jokingly, "Even I know that Joseph was not an Electronic Engineer."

"And who is going to pay for the repairs?" I ask, thinking that he would go away if I ask for money, but he saw right through that. He knows that all these years I have never taken any money from him, so I am not really going to start charging him now. No good deed goes unpunished after all, I think to myself...

"Wouldn’t you like to go to heaven and make God happy?" He asks.

"Not particularly." I say. Going to heaven does not necessarily follow that God will be happy. Besides, the question presupposes that God exists, heaven exists, and that I will go to heaven in the first place. None of which is by any means a certainty, except for being variables in an imaginary equation that are unsolvable.

"Actually I would rather make my bank manager happy by paying off my loan, perhaps a nice little house without rats so that I do not have to use this rat trap. My needs are very simple and humble." I replied.

"You fix this, and you'll get your reward in heaven." He says, as he quickly slams the car door shut and speeds off before I say anything.

"Yeah I'll keep praying... real hard." I say, as the car speeds out of sight. We all know that God is on the side of the rich, people who win the Premium Bonds, sleazy celebrities, drug addict celebrities, Arabs, sleazy MPs, sleazy Knights, sleazy Lords, and over half of the corrupted British society. Heaven is reserved for them. The rest of us have to work our fingers to the bone and be damned!

I decided to move the speakers and bags out of the way and consider myself lucky; at least he did not stay for tea and a long chat! Heaven can wait...

Once again, there was silence and peace as I drank my tea, which was lukewarm, I read the note, which simply stated, "Power transistors keep blowing at full volume - Intermittent Fault."

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