PRISONER OF MY PANTS

                                                PRISONER OF MY PANTS    
                                                                             T. Wieland Allen
     I'm hoping that other people have not been in the same predicament in which I was a couple of weeks ago.  Maybe they have.  Maybe I'm not the only one in the world who has found herself in a pitiful situation, the kind in which you don't know whether to laugh or cry.  Preferring to laugh at myself, I ended up giving out loud laughs from deep within me for a few minutes.  They weren't chuckles or little lady-like snickers, they were from deep inside of me, the kind that makes you tired when you finally compose yourself
     Here's the story.  The morning had started off great.  I did my usual morning breathing exercises, then went to the computer and typed up the words of encouragement that I put on one of my blogs every morning.  Then I knew that I needed to shower and wash my hair to get ready to attend the funeral of a dear and wonderful young man who had died very unexpectedly.
     Previously I had sustained a broken bone in my left foot and in the big toe on my right foot in a fall down the basement stairs a few weeks ago and I found it necessary to wear one of those huge orthopedic boots, per the doctor's orders.  I call it the Frankenstein boot because it makes me look like the monster when I weave back and forth and side to side while walking.   I had easily dressed every day and had been successful in pushing the left leg of my jeans into the boot before strapping it up.
      HOWEVER, the day of the funeral I had decided that I needed to find a pair of pants that were very wide legged, hoping that I could get the pants leg up over the huge boot..  I looked way back in the closet and found a black pair of pants that had much wider legs.  They are very old but I thought they would suffice and at least cover up the boot, hoping very few people would notice the boot, which caused people to always ask what happened.  I measured the pants legs, and the figures convinced me that I could get the pant leg over the boot.
       I meticulously put my makeup on because I had been out of the house very few times and was eager to be with people while looking my best.  Then I put on my shirt and jewelry after fixing my hair.  It happened to be one of those good hair days.  My matching jacket was hanging on the door ready to be put on right before my friends picked me up for the funeral.
       The first mistake was that I had left the wide legged pants to be put on last, thinking that they would slide on easily over the really wide and long knee length orthopedic boot.  After all, the measurements showed that it might be a tight fit but it would work.  In actuality, I had also left the chore of putting the pants on until last because I knew I would need a short rest in my recliner with my legs up before completing the task of dressing because at that point showering, washing my hair and putting on makeup was an exhausting two hours effort with the broken bone in one foot and a broken bone in the other big toe.
       I sat in a large chair in my bedroom, all perfectly groomed from the waist up and then I started to slip on the wide legged pants.  I put on the right leg easily over the taped broken toe, pulled that side of the pants up to my waist and began to put the booted leg into the left leg of the pants.  The toe of the boot went easily into the pant leg but when the pant leg got up to the wide part, the instep to heel width,  it refused to budge.  No problem, I thought, I'll just inch the pant legs slowly up until it clears all of the orthopedic boot.
        Tugging and pulling was of no effect.  The little minuscule fractions of an inch that I managed to move the pant leg up past the heel and the instep of the boot only resulted in the pant leg getting more tightly stuck.                      
        There I sat, all beautifully groomed and coiffured from the waist up, feeling like a prisoner let out of confinement since the fall.  From the waist down I looked like a three year old learning to dress herself with one leg in the pants and one leg caught in a vise on the ortho boot.  I couldn't move it up or down.  I was trapped there.
         A thought came to me to take the ortho boot off.  Great idea, I thought.  Well, that wasn't going to work since the tight pant leg was blocking the seven long straps that had to be unstrapped to get the boot off.
          Maybe you haven't been in that predicament before.  Maybe you're smarter than I was.
          The phone rang and I knew it was my friends wanting to pick me up for the funeral.  After all, I couldn't drive with one broken foot wearing a Frankenstein boot and the other foot having a broken big toe taped to the other toes.  Luckily the foot with the problematic big toe wasn't quite as swollen as the other foot so I could get a big athletic shoe on it, being glad for the firm support. 
        Sure enough, the call was from friends asking if I was ready to be picked up and escorted to the funeral.  I replied that I had decided not to go to the funeral.  There I sat, with one leg of the pants wedged onto the ortho boot so tightly the only solution was to cut it off.
         By this time I was exhausted from the preparation in getting dressed but also from having a tug of war with the pants, neither being able to get the one leg off nor geting it on over the orthopedic boot while having the other leg successfully pulled up to the waist.  I was a hilarious sight; pitiful but hilarious.
         After the laughing spell ended from seeing myself in the ridiculous position, realizing that living alone does give a person opportunities to laugh at oneself because of the situations that can happen, I decided to move to my recliner and rest by either cutting off the leg of the pants or by walking ever so slowly down the hall to the recliner, dragging the pants.  I chose to walk down the hall since the wooden floors would allow me to scoot the imprisoned pants down the hall so I could plop myself into the recliner.  That worked.
          I fell into the recliner, put up the foot rest, took a deep breath and relaxed.  I woke an hour later in the recliner with my pants still hanging from the boot.  What an embarrassing sight to wake to.
           Being refreshed, the task didn't seem quite so ominous.  It took a while but I was able to move the pant leg quarter inch by quarter inch down until the pant leg finally fell off of the big ortho boot.  I was free at last.
           I was sorry to miss the funeral of such a wonderful young man, desiring to extend my sympathy to the family.  Some people to whom I've told the story have said that maybe I didn't need to be at the funeral since it had only been a few months since my husband died. Maybe that's right.
          You probably already have the situation figured out.  It came to me later on.  I should have put the wide legged pants on before I put the boot on.  Then I could have inched the top of the pants down over the top of the boot because the width of the boot at calf level is not as wide as the distance from the instep to the heel of the boot.   My mistake.
           It called for more exercise trying to accomplish the difficult task than I had had in the two weeks since the fall which necessitated wearing the orthopedic boot.
           I still laugh when I envision myself in the compromised position.  It was either laugh or cry and I preferred to laugh at myself, of which I seem to be doing more as I get older and the longer I live by myself.  I can be very entertaining to myself on occasion, never intending to do so, of course.  It just works out that way.
                       
         

DARN CELL PHONE

    

                                                DARN CELL PHONE
                                                                                   T. WIELAND ALLEN

      So here I am, standing in my kitchen laughing out loud at myself.  I must be the funniest person I know or I just do silly things that always make me laugh at myself.  Today was the topper, I mean the absolute topper.
      I run a small home based business alone since my husband died and so I have to carry the business phone around with me everyplace in the house.  Don't want to miss a single business call. 
      Since my husband died, my adult children have been very attentive to me, calling regularly to check on me to make sure I'm not laying dead on the floor or maybe laying flat on the basement floor again, where I was a month ago after falling down the basement stairs. So that necessitates my carrying around my cell phone also.  If they can't get hold of me, they start calling around to make sure I'm still alive.  I really appreciate that.
       Per usual, this morning I had carried the business phone and my cell phone to various areas of the house so I could answer whichever one rang.  Feeling a little bit in bondage to the phones has been tough on me, independent soul that I am.   But, it's been a necessity to have both phones near by me at all times.
        Neither phone had rung yet this morning, but I had sent and answered several texts.
         I had done some office work and had sat down to finish a business chore when the cell phone rang.  Surely it was my son who lives in sunny California because he usually calls at about the same time every week.  Intending to reach for the cell phone sitting alongside the business phone, my hand came up empty handed. No phone there.   The phone kept ringing its merry tune. 
         Looked all over the kitchen.  No phone.
         Looked all over the office.  No phone.
         Looked all over the office bathroom where I take it when I take a potty break.  No phone.
         Back to the kitchen, further tearing up the kitchen, there was no phone, even though the ring sounded like it was in that room.
         Back to the office, tearing up the office, moving papers, moving documents, frantically trying to answer the cell phone. The caller was obviously persistent.   No phone, even thought the ring sounded like the phone was in the office, too.  Again, no phone and I left the office in such disarray that it will take a week to reorganize it. 
          Back to the bathroom, where the sound now came from.  It seemed to be saying that the lost cell phone was in the bathroom.  I opened the vanity, thinking I might have inadvertently shoved it in there while putting away some cosmetics.  No, no phone.   
          However, I had dialed my own cell phone number with the business phone, hoping to be able to follow the sound of the ring to the right room.  The mystery was that every room I entered, it sounded like that was the room where the cell phone was hiding.
           I had had too much coffee so that alarming feeling came upon me that said that I better go to the bathroom or I would be changing underpants and pants in a few minutes.
           The cell phone was still ringing from the last call I had made to my own cell phone, hoping to be able to follow the sound of the ring.  I was desperate to potty so I sat on the toilet and was amazed that the ringing sounded like it was coming from the toilet stool.  How could that be? 
           Suddenly I remembered that I had decided to take the advice of a friend and put the cell phone in the back pocket of my jeans. There is was, all safe and sound, neatly enclosed in my back pocket.
           It didn't take me long, astute as I am at my age, to figure out that the reason the cell phone sounded like it was in every room I rushed into is because it was, in reality, in every room I entered.  It was in my back pocket ringing its annoying little ring, trying to tell me where it was hiding.
           Never again will I put it in my back pocket.  I'll do what I have always done in the past, put it right beside the business phone where I can see it and where it is accessible.
           It could have been worse, it could have ended up in the toilet stool like what happened to my youngest sister when she rushed to go to the bathroom after a long walk and it fell into the toilet when she pulled her jogging pants down.  Her cell phone went to never, never land, flushed down the toilet and into the sewer system.
           At least my cell phone was retrievable, found in the back pocket of my jeans.  Short term memory has never been a problem for me.  Maybe I better check for other warning signs.
            Oh, well, the top of the cabinets in the kitchen need to be cleaned off anyway and the unorganized clutter in the office needs to be reorganized and the vanity in the office bathroom needs to be cleaned out.  Frantically looking for the cell phone might have done me a favor.  I'll need to get with the chore quickly now, instead of waiting until the mood strikes me.               
             Now that I think about it,  I kind of felt like a dog chasing his own tail, oblivious to the fact that what he is chasing belongs to him.
             My father-in-law always said that getting older isn't for sissies.  It's not too bad, really, because I spend a lot of time laughing at myself.  I think I'm funny, even if nobody else does.