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Bart looked directly at John, dead in the eye, and said, “His leaving is a great idea. Angels! Sheesh!” Harding started to get up, but John stopped him when he said, “Take it easy, Bart. He seems like a sincere enough guy. He probably won’t let on who we really are, at least not on purpose. But so what if something does slip out? Then what do we do? We would have to find someplace else to eat, that’s all. How hard could that be? Now relax, and look at it this way: We are better off keeping him close by where we can keep an eye on him. Besides, we can probably get him to pick up the check from now on.”
“OK,” Bart relented, “I’ll go along with it for now, but remember when he does something stupid that it was your idea. By the way, why are you always telling me to relax?” Then he looked at Harding and said, “I want you to understand that you had better keep your word about not spilling the beans. But if you do give us up, I promise that I will make sure you get the lamest guardian angel in the business. Nothing will ever go right for you ever again.” Harding nodded and said, with a smile, “Don’t you worry about me spilling the beans. I get the picture. And thanks for confirming that you are Master Guardian Angels. There is no way an apprentice would even think of backing up that threat you just made.”
At this point of the story, many readers are undoubtedly jealous of the opportunity Harding had sitting there before him. The mind boggles at the multitude of questions and favors that could be asked of a pair of angels. Grand questions like “How can we put an end to war?” or “Why does God allow so many children to go hungry each day, and what can I do about it?” come to mind. Simple favors like help with retiring a personal debt or with making algebra easy for one’s child may seem appropriate to others. Harding still wishes that he had the foresight and presence of mind to ask such noble things, but he didn’t.
The fact is that before he sat down and confirmed they were Master Guardian Angels, he didn’t truly believe it himself, so he didn’t prepare any righteous questions or requests. Instead he brought up the first thing that came to mind. He asked Bart, “Are you by any chance my guardian angel? Because if you are, we need to talk about an audit notice I got from the IRS.” He thought it would be great to have a hip guy like Bart for a guardian angel. He got his answer when he saw John catch Bart before he slugged him.
John said to Bart, “I thought I told you to relax! That is a perfectly normal question for him to ask. Now sit back and I’ll explain it to him.” Bart did sit back a little, so John said to Harding, “It is not good for us to develop a personal relationship with the people we watch over, because it interferes with our objectivity, so the rule against meeting your guardian angel is very strict. We will always uphold the highest standard of objectivity, no matter what. I am sure you understand.”