Monday, November 2, 2009

Hide-and-Go-Seek Mishap

I have a tendency to get in some tricky predicaments with my wheelchair. Sometimes I don't realize what my chair can't do, or I'll forget I am in my chair. For example, I have bent over to fix my shoe while still driving and rammed my head in a wall. I think my wheelchair can fit in and go places it can't. For example, I have been on hiking trails that have signs posted that say, "Not suitable for wheelchairs", and the sign makers are right they aren't. Another time I got stuck while playing hide-and-go-seek. I am embarrassed to say it didn't happen when I was a young child. This summer I got stuck while playing hide-and-go-seek, even more embarrassing, I was playing with Paco.

When I am in Montana with Caren we usually go everywhere together, I even "walk" the golf course with her every day. When I do stay home alone I usually stay outside. I don't like to stay in the house alone because if anything happened I wouldn't be able to open the door. If I could open the door, I couldn't get off the porch. I don't mind staying outside; that is where I spend most of my days in Montana. I chase the sun around the house and read books.

One day Caren and her husband, Darrell, went golfing at a course that I can't "walk". It has too many hills and no cart path. I decided to stay home. I made sure I had a pile of books to keep me busy, and I had them leave the garage open, so I could get out of the rain. In Montana storms build, burst, and blow over within minutes. It takes about four hours to play eighteen holes of golf, so I had to keep myself occupied about five hours.

Eventually, I got bored with reading. Paco was being weird barking at everything. My sentry was "on guard", so he had to let everything that moves know that he was in charge and ready to attack anytime. I noticed that when he went off to bark at something he would stop barking if he couldn't see me, and look for me. I wanted him to stop barking, so whenever he would start to bark I would move out of his line of sight, and he would look for me. Well, one thing led to another, and I was playing hide-and-go-seek with my dog. I, a fifty-three year old, fairly intelligent woman was playing hide-and-go-seek with a dog!

Paco knew all my hiding places: the garage, behind the boat in the garage, behind the woodshed, behind the car, around the corner of the house. It was time to find a new place. Darrell has a small red trailer that he usually stores in the garage, except when Caren and I am there during the summer. At that time he stores it off to the far left of the driveway. I decided it would be a great place to hide.

Paco ran across the property to bark at the wind, and I went to my "new and improved" hiding place. I haven't spent a lot of time in that area of the driveway, so I didn't know that the gravel was loose and deep. Paco, after checking all the regular places found me rather quickly. I proceeded to move from behind the trailer and my wheelchair like a car in soft mud sunk into the soft gravel. I continued to try to work my way out, and I continued to dig my chair deeper into the rocks.

It was about time for Caren and Darrell to come home, so I thought I would just wait for them. That would have been fine, if my chair hadn't started tipping to the left in my last attempt to free myself. The trailer was parked on the edge of the driveway, directly next to a eighty degree drop into a ravine filled with bushes, fallen logs, spiders, snakes, mice, and many other creepy crawly things just waiting to attack. If I went over the edge I would tumble into the ravine never to be found again, I was sure, and besides it would hurt.

There I was teetering dangerously on the edge of a precipice and a storm was rolling toward me. I decided to call Caren and Darrell and check on their arrival.

"Ummmmmmmmm, Caren when do you think you will be home?" I asked nonchalantly.

"We just got done golfing. We had to wait for the storm to blow over. Right now Darrell just went into Home Depot," she replied.

"Oh, God, not Home Depot!" I thought.

"Why do you want to know?" she inquired.

"Well...... I am kinda stuck," I confessed.

"Where are you stuck?" she asked.

"Behind the little red trailer," I sheepishly replied.

"Behind the little red trailer!"raising her voice. "What were doing to be way over there?"

"I was plamabayahideandbobeepwithPababa," I mumbled.

"What? I didn't hear you. Say that again," she demanded.

"I was plamabayahideandbobeepwithPababa," I repeated.

"I don't know what you are saying, but if we leave right now, we still won't be there for about forty-five minutes at least. You are going to have to call Grandma, and ask her to come over and help," she informed me.

Grandma is Darrell's eighty year old mother. She lives about three minutes away, five if the only traffic light in town is red. So, I called Grandma and she came to my rescue. Paco led her directly to me. Grandma might be on in years, but she is made of good, strong, farm stock. She got me out of there with some work. After I was safely away from the dangerous precipice, she asked, "What were you doing to get stuck?"

I dipped my head and quietly confessed my stupidity, "I was playing hide-and-go-seek with Paco."

She squinted her eyes, titlted her head to one side, smirked and replied, "Oh, don't you just hate it when the dog finds all your good hiding places?"

Paco's Perspective

I am the king, I am the king, I am the hide-and-go-seek king. You think I didn't see you when I went to bark at the deadly intruders.

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