Wednesday, August 22, 2007

Your Mother Doesn't Live Here

So these last two weeks Velo and I have been locking up the church. That's his calling. We just love it. It is relaxing, peaceful, one is able to do it on your own schedule and it is surprisingly necessary.
Most nights there have been things for us to fix. Now, I'm not sure about you, but I was taught to leave things in a better state than they were in before I had them/used them/etc.
One night we drove by and there was a van out front. Turns out someone was tuning the organ at 11:30 at night. Strange we thought, but they scurried off when they heard us, so we never saw them or had to kick them out. Strange, but not too bad.
Another night, there was a light on in the clerks office. Again this was abnormally late at night. (We usually lock up right before we turn in to bed.) Velo was going to leave it, but I thought he should at least tell them to double check that they closed the outside door behind them. So he knocked on the door. No answer, he knocked again and said hello. No answer, Velo wanted to leave, I was outraged someone wouldn't even answer. Rude! So we knocked louder and tried rattling the door. You know, to really let them know someone wanted to talk to them. Still no answer. Velo decided to try his key. This would surely make the culprit open the door. The key worked! It actually opened the door to the clerks office. We were super surprised. However, no one was in the office. They had just neglected to turn off the light. Wow, they must have been in a rush to get out of there if they couldn't even have flipped the switch.
My saddest events since we've been locking up have been; finding parked cars in the lot (with people in the backseats.) I mean, who goes to a church parking lot to make out-or worse? Velo found paint balled windows once on a outside check. And, once we found a rock and shards of glass on the floor of the R.S. room. The window had been duct-taped by someone that day using the room for an activity, but the blatent vandalism made my heart sink into my stomach.
How horrible to be so willing to just destroy property.
These, amongst the very common; a/c left on, windows open, lights on and doors not locked up, show an irresponsibility baffling to me.

Clean up your own mess. That doesn't just mean trash and garbage, that means putting things back, closing windows you opened, flipping a switch when you leave, and making sure the building you're using is kept clean and safe by simply locking it back up. Is this such a difficult concept? Do we have so much to do we can't leave things in a better or at least similar state as we found them? Or is it just simply someone elses job to clean up after us?
Seriously, be responsible enough to take care of things that aren't even yours, but that you are taking the luxury of using.

1 comment:

dishes and laundry said...

I was so worried about what you'd find behind the locked door! I had two thoughts - dead clerk, or nearly naked teenagers listening to their ipods. Whew - an empty room. Why do I always go to worst case scenario first?

That's kind of creepy that the organ was being tuned so late at night. Always take Velo with you!