Home Life

I ended up firmly ensconced in the guest bedroom. And, as much as my mind and heart wanted to be downstairs, my broken, sprained left ankle simply refused to cooperate. My weight while not as substantial as it used to be was still larger than two, OK, six or seven super models put together. Putting that weight on my “less damaged” ankle and the act of crutching around was showing itself to be less and less of an option. Luckily my mother-in-law who actually does have one of everything, presented me with a wheelchair. I could now wheel around banging into woodwork and practice for my role in Whatever Happened to Baby Jane.

On my arrival, my pets were super happy to see me. And in the manner of loved ones everywhere they immediately jumped on my ankles, repeatedly. Thank goodness for ice and pain pills, oh and elevation. However elevation required pillows. I started, by proxy, collecting pillows from every room in the house. I eventually ended up looking like I was being eaten alive by a extra fluffy muppet. But I was relatively comfortable. Well, except when my dogs tried to play King of the Mountain on the pile of pillows that I was putting my feet on. Dogs have no respect for splints and ace bandages, well except for as implements in a game of tug of war. By the way, never leave a loose end when re-wrapping ace bandages around your foot.

Now came the challenge of describing exactly where my stuff was that I wanted. It was rather like reverse charades. Of course I had to also take into account that my husband has a negative spot check for anything that he isn’t actually holding.
“My book and pen are downstairs on the coffee table.”
“I looked, they aren’t.”
“Please look again, I’m sure I left them on the coffee table.”
“I looked again, they’re not there.”
“Try. Again.”
“Oh, I found your book and pen.”
“Really? Great, where were they?”
“On the coffee table under a piece of paper.”
Sometimes graciousness means smiling hard enough that your teeth are cracking while you're saying, "Thank you."

Now picture this conversation repeated for just about everything, underwear, sweatshirts, deodorant, and yarn, especially yarn. And before you even begin to ask, yes yarn is an essential in my life. There was just some stuff that neither my husband or mother-in-law could find no matter how well I described its location. So, after several attempts I knew what I had to do. I waited until both my mother-in-law and husband had left the main floor and then slid my crutches down the stairs and butt bumped my way on down to the basement. I grabbed a bag that I could hang around my neck and started crutching and crawling my way around the basement grabbing the missing essentials, which included the precious yarn right where I had described it.

Pulling myself back upstairs with my arms proved to be a bit more difficult, but ultimately doable and by the time I was back in bed I was exhausted, but satisfied. Unfortunately my little foray was not unnoticed.
“Where the HELL did that yarn come from?!”
“The basement pantry.”
“You know what I mean, you better not have gone downstairs to get it.”
“Well, no one else was successful in getting it.”
“If you ever even try to go downstairs again I’m hiding your crutches AND your wheelchair so that you’re stuck in this bed and have to let people help you.”
“ok”
“And mom, since you didn't notice her sneaking downstairs, you’re fired.”