Fake Cripple

Tonight Darren and I were driving to his sister’s house for dinner, when we both spotted an old man walking down the sidewalk. In front of him, at shin-height, he held a metal walker. It seemed to me that trying to walk while carrying a walker was just creating more work for the man, even though a walker is meant to make life easier for those with bad legs and hips. He was struggling not to kick the metal while he navigated the pavement, and honestly, the thing looked heavy. I am 26, and do push-ups, but I probably couldn’t carry a walker for more than a block. So what was this old man’s story? Was he trying to get downtown quickly, where he would ground his walker and begin limping behind it like a cripple, begging for spare change? Was the sidewalk too bumpy for the walker’s wheels, so he was forced to carry it? Was it a walker he found beside someone’s trash can, salvaged with the expectation that he would need it someday? Watching him struggle, I kept thinking of someone with a wheelchair perched on his head like a bucket, jogging along with the upside-down wheels turning in the breeze. Or someone strapping a bicycle to his back and sweating on his walk along a bike path. If I ever break my ankle, I am going to buy crutches, and instead of using them to take the weight off my foot, I am going to make stilts out of them and start training for the circus.

Dinner was really good. We had vegetables from Jennifer’s garden. Big props to Jennifer in case she is reading this. I apologize for the word props. The best part of dinner was when Harper stopped in the middle of her ramikin of homemade chocolate chip ice cream to tell her mother, “I like to lick you sometimes.”

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