Partner tore a muscle in his thigh at Thanksgiving; it pained him grievously, and made it difficult for him to walk comfortably.
So he used a cane for a while.
We’re a three-cane family. We both own formal canes that are basically varnished tree-branches, and I keep a regular old medical-supply cane in the umbrella stand for occasional use. I have occasional attacks of sciatica – one’s coming on right now, actually – during which I walk painfully, with a strange posture. One of my very sweetest co-workers said some years ago that she always knew when I was having a sciatica attack, because I “walked like I had a load in my pants.”
Charming.
Anyway, Partner was using his fancy cane when he went back to work after Thanksgiving. One of his co-workers called him “Gandalf,” which I thought was hysterical, and I wish I’d thought of it first. Myself, I like to use the regulation old-lady medical-supply cane; it looks stark and grandfatherly, and it tacitly reminds the children I work with that time is fleeting and the body crumbles. Heh heh.
(My friend Patricia, now living in East Deerswamp, Massachusetts, has a much prettier cane, tinted lilac and patterned with lovely flower designs. She was always a bit of a princess. When she was still in the office with us, she’d jab us with it, unless we grabbed it away from her and jabbed her back.)
So Partner and I are tottering on into old age together. Good! Why not? I saw a wonderful YouTube video recently of two old football players on stage together at a banquet; they’d been enemies/rivals decades ago, and the feud has never died; one tried to josh the other with some flowers, and the other struck out with his cane, and a fistfight ensued.
Which is the other reason a cane is handy. It’s excellent for bopping people on the head.
Patricia would agree. So would Partner.
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