Transcription
So what's with that big list that Mr. Harper is working on?
Hello and welcome! Welcome to Input English. Today, we talk about Mr. Harper and his big secret. In the last episode, he made amends to Trevor and to Craig because he gave them a hard time, and that was nagging at him. He didn't want that to hang over the way they got along with each other.
But how does that fit into this overall puzzle of Mr. Harper having a ledger on his desk with dozens, if not hundreds, of entries requiring that a box be checked off each time he completes a task? What is this all about?
In the last episode, I told you he has a big secret. The reason Mr. Harper is checking all these boxes off is he is making detailed preparations for an upcoming event. He is planning this event in great detail; nothing can be out of place. Each entry in that book needs to be completed so that he will be successful, and almost everything in that book is in service of his big secret.
Mr. Harper has lived in this house for nearly 25 years. He was living in that house before most of the neighbors moved into this neighborhood because neighborhoods turn over as people move in and out. So he has been there longer than most of the neighbors. For most of the neighbors, he is just a normal part of the neighborhood, but that was not always the case.
What he is preparing to do is to move, but he doesn't call it that to himself. He refers to this process that he is preparing for in a different term; he tells himself that he is getting ready to molt. Yes, molt!
As you may know, animals molt; that is, they shed feathers, fur, skin, or shell or something as a part of their life cycle. A snake may shed its skin, and thus the snake has molted. Birds molt, elephant seals molt. Humans don't do that, so when he attributes molting to himself, he's using the term as a metaphor. It's a figure of speech to describe what he is doing, and it's an appropriate one. He is going to have a major change in his life, and he is preparing for that, again in service of his big secret.
So he is going to molt. He has been planning for this for several years; he knew that the need was coming. He quit his job. He had worked in a factory where they made bathroom tiles, and it was just a menial laboring job. But he really didn't need the money; he just needed to function in the community and have a job. So he worked part-time at the tile company, and that fulfilled his needs. He really didn't need the money.
His preparations have also taken him to his next residence. He's going to move out of state, a couple hundred miles away. He has already taken a number of steps to establish himself in his new location. For the short term, he rented a room to establish a mailing address, and he opened a bank account in his new location.
He is not going to go by the name of Ben Harper. This is the name and identity he has used in this town, but when he moves to his next location after the molt, he'll have a different identity.
On this day, he is studying his big ledger, looking at the things he has checked off and then getting a picture in his mind of how he is going to attack all the tasks that need to be done. He compared the entries in his pocketbook to make sure that they matched the big ledger book. He didn't want to skip a necessary step. He went to the end of the ledger book where the blank lines were available, and he puzzled for a second as to whether he was forgetting something. Should he make a new entry of something else that needs to be done?
Mr. Harper has mixed feelings about this molting process. This will be the first time in this century he has molted. The last time he did it was before the year 2000. In the 20th century, he molted four times.
That's the end of this episode. I hope you enjoyed it! I invite comments below, and I hope you join us in future videos. See you soon! [Music]