Working the Family Business: The day the ceiling melted

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She climbed the ladder, a mini vacuum filling her arms and bulky boots covering her feet. Following her father, the girl made her way to the attic space above the carwash bays. With looped cord awkwardly dangling from the unbalanced mini vac, she stepped carefully on to the rafter struts. The attic, lacking a finished floor, had only exposed parallel rafters, 2 by 8s turned on end, on which to navigate. Between the rafters, the girl eyed the thin sheet metal ceiling of the carwash bay below, like an opaque rice paper window separating the two spaces. She wondered about it for only 2 seconds and then heard her father's call, "come over to the next bay ". They were repairing product lines. Each bay had a plastic tube supplying soap to a foaming scrub brush. These lines ran from the equipment room, through the attic space, and into each wash bay. The girl was helping her father make the repair. Always the tool gopher and clean up crew, the girl learned a lot from her father.

The girl often was asked to help with the family business, a self serve and automatic carwash. At age 10, she started off as her father's helper, replenishing soap and wax solutions, collecting dollar bills from the money changer, and filling the various vending machines. Later she, at age 13, would scrub white wall tires, squeegee window shields, and towel dry clean cars. Eventually she, at age 15, would run the automatic carwash, empty 50 gallon sized trash bins, and clean out the washed away muck in the drainage trenches. She was like the son her father never had. The girl was a helper, an assistant, a responsible daughter, heeding her father's steady stream of instructions.

"Come over to the next bay space, don't step between the rafters, stay on the wood" called her father from across the attic space. The few second day-dream was broken and she immediately stepped forward to follow her father's directions. However a problem occurred which sent her back into a dream, a nightmare rather. When she stepped out, her foot did not land on the wood rafter. Somehow, when she made her way forward, she came down in the wrong place. Her clunky booted foot, instead, met with sheet metal, the ceiling of the washing bay 15 feet below. As quick as it bore her weight, it also melted away like butter and she descended as if in a dream. In the nightmare, the mini vacuum, in slow motion, tumbled from her arms, end over end, down, down, down, with cord trailing into the bay below and crashing into a pickup cab roof, startling its owner who lost control of the high pressure washer gun in which he was spraying off his vehicle. The girl was jolted to reality, like an unexpected scare, as if a siren alarm went off in a silent room. Thud; her arm pits caught on the solid rafters. Miraculously, her arm span was exactly perpendicular to the parallel rafter struts, preventing her fall to the bay below. With a hard fast jerk, her outstretched arms stopped her downward momentum. She was stuck. Her legs and torso dangled through the mangled sheet metal ceiling of the carwash bay below. And to her horror and mortification, she realized her sweatshirt was also up to her armpits exposing her torso a stranger below.

At the same instant, her father and a shell shocked customer bolted into action. The father saw his daughter disappear. The customer unexpectedly found a body crashing through the ceiling while washing his truck. The customer climbed up on top of his pickup cab roof and wrapped his arms around the girl's torso, trying to save her. The father deftly ran across the rafters and grabbed hold of the girl's shoulders. They all pulled at once, not knowing the other's action. The father yanked up, the customer heaved down, and the girl stuck in the middle. Confusion and self consciousness flooded the girl's body but before she had time to utter a word, she was catapulted to safety. The father had the upper hand and adrenalin strength to pull his girl out of harm. And as quick as he saved his daughter, he was off to take care of the damage done to the stunned customer, offering a free carwash for his trouble.

The day the girl melted through the carwash ceiling ended early. She was sent home to recover from the shock and embarrassment of her missed step. She learned a valuable lesson about ceilings and rafters that day but she was back on the job the next weekend. Working in the family business was a good experience. It gave the girl a sense of confidence and competence for the mechanical world. Having responsibility at an early age allowed her to develop attributes of diligence and problem solving in real life circumstances. However the most valuable asset received from the family business but one not appreciated until adulthood was the instruction and attention given to the girl by her father, truly a time-released treasure.