Lookout—Christopher Newport University

Then he exclaims, “Air ducts! The worse thing man ever created!” He wishes he had the chance to meet the guy who decided to place the main air duct right in the center of the crawl space, making Ben’s job that much more complicated. Instead of crawling the house once, he has to crawl half way around the house, turn around and crawl back to the crawl door, then crawl half the house on the other side and then turn back around and return to the crawl door again. You’d think he might crawl under or over the air ducts, but not in Virginia. Oh no. We like to make things a real pain for the workhorse. You wonder how the air duct guy ever got out of the crawl space. Not only does Ben, the termite inspector, have to inspect for termites, moisture, fungus and structural problems, but he becomes a regular James Bond as he attempts to maneuver around the air ducts without touching them—as if they are laser motion detectors—all the while fighting off spiders, rats, snakes and the occasional cat or raccoon as he army-crawls through mud, sand, standing water, dryer lint, hanging electrical wires, cat pee and crap. But it’s only 8:05 a.m. and yes, this must be repeated eight more times today, every hour on the hour until 5 p.m. when he returns to the office to draw up paperwork. Another ten hours wasted on something he hates. But hey, it pays the bills. Suicide crosses his mind several times a day. That’s when Ben calls coworker, Tom, on his two-way Nextel radio and begins his bluesy tune, “I hate my life and I wanna die.”







					ometimes you run into crawl spaces that could otherwise be called, as Ben sarcastically mentions with an inflated tone, “a crap crawl, a pool, a canal, a wet, dark hanging-insulation-obstructing-every-view-you-have-360° sauna.”
				Then he exclaims, “Air ducts! The worse thing man ever created!” He wishes he had the chance to meet the guy who decided to place the main air duct right in the center of the crawl space, making Ben’s job that much more complicated. Instead of crawling the house once, he has to crawl half way around the house, turn around and crawl back to the crawl door, then crawl half the house on the other side and then turn back around and return to the crawl door again. You’d think he might crawl under or over the air ducts, but not in Virginia. Oh no. We like to make things a real pain for the workhorse. You wonder how the air duct guy ever got out of the crawl space. Not only does Ben, the termite inspector, have to inspect for termites, moisture, fungus and structural problems, but he becomes a regular James Bond as he attempts to maneuver around the air ducts without touching them—as if they are laser motion detectors—all the while fighting off spiders, rats, snakes and the occasional cat or raccoon as he army-crawls through mud, sand, standing water, dryer lint, hanging electrical wires, cat pee and crap. But it’s only 8:05 a.m. and yes, this must be repeated eight more times today, every hour on the hour until 5 p.m. when he returns to the office to draw up paperwork. Another ten hours wasted on something he hates. But hey, it pays the bills. Suicide crosses his mind several times a day. That’s when Ben calls coworker, Tom, on his two-way Nextel radio and begins his bluesy tune, “I hate my life and I wanna die.”