An elderly carpenter was ready to retire. He told his employer-contractor of his plans to leave the house building business and live a more leisurely life with his wife, enjoying his extended family. He would miss the paycheck, but he needed to retire. They would get by, somehow...

What he hadn't told his employer was that his wife was dying and he wanted them to spend the last few months of her life together. He wanted to be with her, to take care of her, and to comfort her. He regretted that he and his wife had never had much time together before, but his employer always had "one more job" for him to do.

He was also saddened and stressed by the fact that his employer had not supplied him with any decent benefits during his long tenure there as a "valued employee". His retirement was peanuts and his health insurance was proving to be woefully inadequate. Oh, he would "get by" all right, as long as he didn't run the heater this winter and could acquire a taste for Alpo.

The contractor was sorry to see his good worker go, after all, he had made great profits off of the old man's skilled craftsmanship over the past several decades. How could he be replaced? No one today would work such long hours with no overtime. The carpenters of today demanded decent pay and benefits. No, the contractor could never find another person who was as profitable as this old man.

The contractor then asked if the old man if he would build just one more house for him as a personal favor. The carpenter could not believe the his boss would ask this of him, but said "yes".

He always said "yes"...

In time, it was easy to see that the old man's heart was not in his work. The longer he worked, the angrier and more resentful he became. He resorted to shoddy workmanship and used inferior materials because he was in a hurry. His wife's last days were flying by, and she was home all alone. It was an unfortunate way to end his career.

Just as the carpenter finished his work, a neighbor's car pulled up to the construction sight. His neighbor told him that he had heard faint cries from within the carpenter's house, and when he could receive no response at the door, he called the police. The police broke down the door and discovered that his wife of the past 51 years had died, alone and cold, in a pool of her own body fluids.

Just as the neighbor left, the contractor came to inspect the house. But, instead of looking around, the contractor handed the front-door key to the carpenter. "This is your house," he said, "my gift to you and your wife. A place you can live out your golden years together !"

What a shock! What a shame! If he had only known he was building his own house, he would have done it all so differently. He would have asked for some time to be with his wife, he could have been there for her, he could have been with her when she died. "Maybe", he thought, "she didn't even have to die if I could have only been there".

Now he had to live in the home he had built none too well, built out of obligation to his employer, built at the cost of his wife. This house would forever remind him of his present unbearable despair.

It was more than the poor old carpenter could stand. Overcome with sorrow, and rage, and the frustration of his decades of unappreciated, unfulfilled, and uncompensated employment, something snapped deep within his mind. He reached down into the weathered tool belt that has served him so well for so many years and slowly drew out his claw hammer.

When the contractor turned his back to make another comment on his shoddy workmanship, he swung the hammer in a long sweeping arc with the strength of a man fifty years younger. It buried in the contractors skull with a sickening, cracking sound.

As the contractor lay on the floor, his life leaving his body in a series of convulsions and a puddle of urine, the old man felt a sense of release and peace.