Watch Out for That Scooter
I've mentioned several times throughout this blog that my family has a tendency to run on the crazy side, especially those related to my mother. (Yes, I realize that this places me firmly within the crazy camp.) Just this very night, I watched my mother put syrup on pancakes -- while they were still cooking in the skillet! When she realized what she had done, she said, "well, isn't this one of the craziest things I have ever done?" To which, I truthfully replied, "no, mother, it doesn't even come close."
My mother used to tell this story about how one of her relatives had his driver's license revoked, so he used his riding lawn mower to go to the store. The family finally had to take the mower away from him. If you are somehow thinking that this is not a sign of craziness, but merely a man being creative with his transportation issues, let me stop you right there. First, I challenge any of you to deny that, if you saw a man driving a lawn mower down a major thoroughfare, your first reaction wouldn't be, "look at that crazy idiot." Second, perhaps you should know that this man had his license revoked because he couldn't see to drive. Third, the family took the mower away from him, not because he was a near-blind man driving a piece of slow-moving farm equipment in rush hour traffic, but because he kept getting tickets from the police! C-R-A-Z-Y.
Up until last week, I had harbored high hopes that the crazy gene was isolated on one side of my family tree. I now know that this is not the case. Due to health problems, my daddy is unable to walk long distances, so he recently got one of those electric scooters. Since he has lost most of his peripheral vision, mother does not let him drive the car. My parents live in a neighborhood with nicely paved streets. See where I am going with this?
The other night, me, Daddy, Paula, Connie and Logan went to Sear's for a pre-Thanksgiving "after-Thanksgiving" sale. Paula and Connie took off to the Electronics Department to shop for Christmas gifts, leaving me, Logan, and Daddy to fend for ourselves, or, should I say, me and Logan to dodge Daddy.
At only 14, Logan has a very well-developed sense of humor, and, over the past couple of months, he has finely honed his reflexes. We can thank Daddy -- and his scooter -- for that last one. As Logan says, "move or be run over." Those without catlike reflexes, or, those in Daddy's peripheral field of vision, have learned this the hard way.
As Logan and I were looking at jewelry for his mother, I heard Logan say, "Oh my God, he's stuck!" I looked across the jewelry counter and saw Daddy, about 25 feet away, frantically working the controls on his scooter. He had tried to go down an aisle between a sweater display and a table holding about 100 boxes of watches, stacked in the shape of a Christmas tree. Either the aisle was too narrow or Daddy clipped the corner, because one of the rear wheels of his scooter had gotten caught on the corner of the sweater table. Daddy's dilemma was this: If he moved forward, he hit the watches. If he moved in reverse, he hit the sweaters.
While rocking back and forth can sometimes free a car tire that is stuck in the mud, I really wouldn't recommend it for scooters that are hung up in holiday displays. Logan and I stared in amazed horror as we saw the table with the watch display start to shake. Daddy, of course, was completely oblivious to the impending disaster, as he was preoccupied with catching sweaters that were falling off the table.
Had I been just another Sears shopper, I probably would have sat back and watched the drama unfold. But, as the daughter of the crazy man ramming holiday displays, I felt compelled to do something to mitigate the carnage. Since I was a good 25 feet away, my options were severely limited. When Logan, his voice full of concern, looked up at me and asked, "what do we do?", it was without the slightest bit of hesitation, that I replied, "if that watch display falls, we run!"
Amazingly, the watches came through the ordeal relatively unscathed. The sweater display -- and family members -- weren't so lucky! When I got Daddy safely home and back into his recliner, I asked him how it was that he got stuck at Sears. His response, "are you talking about when I couldn't get but halfway in the elevator and the doors kept shutting on me?" No Daddy, I must have missed that one ....
Copyright 2006 by Cindy Lane. All rights reserved.
My mother used to tell this story about how one of her relatives had his driver's license revoked, so he used his riding lawn mower to go to the store. The family finally had to take the mower away from him. If you are somehow thinking that this is not a sign of craziness, but merely a man being creative with his transportation issues, let me stop you right there. First, I challenge any of you to deny that, if you saw a man driving a lawn mower down a major thoroughfare, your first reaction wouldn't be, "look at that crazy idiot." Second, perhaps you should know that this man had his license revoked because he couldn't see to drive. Third, the family took the mower away from him, not because he was a near-blind man driving a piece of slow-moving farm equipment in rush hour traffic, but because he kept getting tickets from the police! C-R-A-Z-Y.
Up until last week, I had harbored high hopes that the crazy gene was isolated on one side of my family tree. I now know that this is not the case. Due to health problems, my daddy is unable to walk long distances, so he recently got one of those electric scooters. Since he has lost most of his peripheral vision, mother does not let him drive the car. My parents live in a neighborhood with nicely paved streets. See where I am going with this?
The other night, me, Daddy, Paula, Connie and Logan went to Sear's for a pre-Thanksgiving "after-Thanksgiving" sale. Paula and Connie took off to the Electronics Department to shop for Christmas gifts, leaving me, Logan, and Daddy to fend for ourselves, or, should I say, me and Logan to dodge Daddy.
At only 14, Logan has a very well-developed sense of humor, and, over the past couple of months, he has finely honed his reflexes. We can thank Daddy -- and his scooter -- for that last one. As Logan says, "move or be run over." Those without catlike reflexes, or, those in Daddy's peripheral field of vision, have learned this the hard way.
As Logan and I were looking at jewelry for his mother, I heard Logan say, "Oh my God, he's stuck!" I looked across the jewelry counter and saw Daddy, about 25 feet away, frantically working the controls on his scooter. He had tried to go down an aisle between a sweater display and a table holding about 100 boxes of watches, stacked in the shape of a Christmas tree. Either the aisle was too narrow or Daddy clipped the corner, because one of the rear wheels of his scooter had gotten caught on the corner of the sweater table. Daddy's dilemma was this: If he moved forward, he hit the watches. If he moved in reverse, he hit the sweaters.
While rocking back and forth can sometimes free a car tire that is stuck in the mud, I really wouldn't recommend it for scooters that are hung up in holiday displays. Logan and I stared in amazed horror as we saw the table with the watch display start to shake. Daddy, of course, was completely oblivious to the impending disaster, as he was preoccupied with catching sweaters that were falling off the table.
Had I been just another Sears shopper, I probably would have sat back and watched the drama unfold. But, as the daughter of the crazy man ramming holiday displays, I felt compelled to do something to mitigate the carnage. Since I was a good 25 feet away, my options were severely limited. When Logan, his voice full of concern, looked up at me and asked, "what do we do?", it was without the slightest bit of hesitation, that I replied, "if that watch display falls, we run!"
Amazingly, the watches came through the ordeal relatively unscathed. The sweater display -- and family members -- weren't so lucky! When I got Daddy safely home and back into his recliner, I asked him how it was that he got stuck at Sears. His response, "are you talking about when I couldn't get but halfway in the elevator and the doors kept shutting on me?" No Daddy, I must have missed that one ....
Copyright 2006 by Cindy Lane. All rights reserved.
posted by Cindy Lane at 4:22 AM
1 Comments:
That must have been a fun day at the mall. I wonder why all those wacky things happen to you, you would think it haunts you, wouldn't you?
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