Jackie Wells-Fauth
Some people do not care for canes, disliking not only the inconvenience, but also just the need for one. I don’t always need a cane, but when I do, I have always been very grateful.
My only complaint has been the fact that the cane mutinies every so often. If I brace it against a chair, it flops over, if I hitch it to a table, it always crashes and if I lean it against a wall, it invariably falls, forcing me to do another thing I can’t do: lean over to pick it up!
After my recent knee surgery, I have kept a couple of canes pretty close, and when I went on vacation, I brought them along; the mutiny-prone cane and a heavier, less flighty one that can be handy. The only time I really felt I needed a cane, however, was when we were in the mountains, where I can sometimes feel a little unsteady.
So when we climbed up to a walkway overlook near the Continental Divide, I brought the mutiny cane along. I was so impressed with the view, I thought I needed to get a picture, so I leaned the cane against the railing…the open-barred railing. Of course, the cane immediately slipped through the bars, bounced on its rubber tip against the rocks and disappeared in the brush below, completely out of sight.
“Oh dear!” exclaimed the wife of a couple who were on the walkway as well. But I was not bothered. That cane had mutinied one time too many. As far as I was concerned, it could get eaten by the bears. Served it right.
While I was thinking these things and writing the cane off as lost, the husband of the other couple suddenly exclaimed, “Oh, there it is!” And he pointed to a spot some distance from the walkway.
That’s when my husband mutinied. He went down to the lowest part of the walkway and began testing the railing, looking for a place to swing a leg over. I was horrified. He wasn’t really going to risk his neck over a cheap cane that wouldn’t be lost if it had behaved!
As he was scrambling over that railing like an Olympic athlete, I was quietly saying, “Roy, don’t do that. It’s risky. The cane isn’t worth it. I have another one.” I didn’t want the other couple to think I was an hysterical idiot, so I spoke calmly—I think.
But in my head, I was screaming, “What are you doing, you idiot? Are you insane? You’re going to break a leg and then you will just stay there. I’m not coming to get you, do you understand? I will simply leave you here for the bears and drive away!” That last was an empty threat; I’m terrified of driving in the mountains.
By this time, Roy had dropped to the ground and retrieved the cane. He set it up on the deck and then looked for a place to scramble back up onto the walkway. He tried first at the place where he had rescued the cane. He was going to do it, too, except just as he swung his foot up and over, it hit the post and knocked him back to the ground, much to our horror.
“That’s it!” my inner voice was shrieking, “He’s broken a leg or a hip or something and we will have to fashion a make-shift stretcher and rappel him down the mountain!”
By now, he had returned to the spot where he had gone over in the first place and was climbing on the rock and this time, got his leg over and climbed back on the walkway. I was furious!
“I won’t say thank you,” I snapped, “because you were crazy to do it.” The other man, who had hung around, I think, to see if he could be of help, turned away to hide a smirk. I wanted to hit him with the cane: After all, he was the troublemaker who discovered where the cane was and then couldn’t keep his mouth shut!
“Have we got any Band-Aids,” Roy asked next. And pulling up one pantleg, he displayed a long, bloody scrape on his leg.
“I knew it! I knew you would get hurt doing that crazy stunt!” I said, feeling righteously justified and marching off for my first aid kit.
For the rest of the trip, I will admit I used my heavier, more sturdy cane. I was too mad at the cane that had mutinied and caused all the trouble to trust it. As for the 70-something, Olympic athlete wannabe, I don’t have a spare husband, so I’m going to have to keep him. After all, someone has to drive us out of the mountains!
dropsinthewell 