My brother Cam was in a panic last week.

Cam came rushing into the apartment and asked if I remembered dad telling him to change the dirty air filter in the old gas furnace? I remembered, even though I didn’t suppose why Cam was in such a panic. Cam had changed that air filter at least a dozen times. When Cam said he had it stuck and forced it into the gas furnace, I got a better picture. The air filter should have slid in easily, but it didn’t. I almost wanted to chuckle, even though I was afraid Cam would punch me out. I could not guess he would do such a hare-brained trick as to shove an air filter into the Heating and Air Conditioning system. Cam said he was in a hurry, because he wanted to go out and play football with his friends. I knew this was his code for him wanting to go see his wife, even though I kept our mouth shut. A small part of me was hoping he would let me walk away, although he didn’t. Cam begged me to help him get the air filter out and put a clean 1 in. I didn’t see how he got it stuck, and I wasn’t sure how I was going to help unstuck it. Cam told me to grab the air filter and hold narrow while he tried to loosen it with a hammer. The next thing I knew, the dirty air filter was popping out, and it made a loud crack. The two of us stuck the current air filter in and put the outdated 1 into the trash bin, hoping dad wouldn’t notice if the two of us had broken something.

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