Walking on Thin Ice

 

It was a bright, crisp morning in January.  I opened my eyes to a winter wonderland.  The sound of sleigh bells echoed in the air, and laughing people skied past my window drinking hot chocolate and pelting each other with marshmallows.  But this illusion was faint and transitory.  (I read that sentence in a book and have been dying to use it somewhere.)  It WAS snowing, though, and that meant one thing for certain - it would freeze overnight and tomorrow I'd have to deal with ICE!  (Insert dramatic music here.)

I realized I was now faced with the prospect of once again demonstrating my complete inability to cross the street without having an end-of-life- experience whilst simultaneously screaming at innocent passersby to either help me or get out of the way.  Arming myself against the vicious eastern winds proved not to be a problem, as I merely wore so many layers of clothing that I looked like I was about to be launched into deep space.  

But I wrestled with my most pressing problem - how to navigate crossing the street when it was covered by a sheet of ice or, in the vernacular, "How in the name of Jayzuz am I going to get a pint of milk for me cup of tea without maiming myself on the fucking ice?"  My success rate for dealing with traversing the ice stood at an embarrassing zero, so I set about finding some kind of footwear that would make me somewhat confident to just take a step outside the door without sobbing uncontrollably and looking like a big girlie chicken.

I tried wearing a pair of my husband's mountain boots but abandoned them when a woman stopped me on the street and asked if I had polio.  So I decided to root around in the closet to see if I could find a pair of hiking boots, or maybe some skis, or even a quiet corner behind some coats where I could hide until the ice was gone.  And there, at the furthest reaches of the closet, so far back that it was almost in the Twilight Zone, I came across a lovely pair of fur-lined boots that I must have bought during the Nixon administration and forgotten about.  They were fabulous!  And the soles and heels were rippled, giving them maximum grip potential.  I congratulated myself on my find.  Style AND utility combined in one pair of boots that I had never worn and that had sat untouched for years.

The next morning I confidently strode out looking fabulous in my boots, and walked across the ice-covered street with ease.  I was delighted!  Finally I had solved the problem that I had wrestled with every winter and that had prevented me from emigrating to Vladivostok.  It felt so liberating to be able to walk on sheets of ice without being afraid of falling that I didn't want to stop.

I was knocking on strangers' doors and asking if I could pick up their groceries or walk their dog.  I was on my twentieth mile about town when I suddenly realized that I was walking with a limp.  I wondered if perhaps I had always walked with a limp and was only noticing it now.  Then I had the terrifying thought that maybe one of my legs was shorter than the other one!  Why, WHY, hadn't I noticed it before?  Why hadn't anyone gently mentioned it to me?  Why hadn't my doctor, during my last checkup, said "Your bowel movements are normal and, by the way, one of your legs is shorter than the other one"? 

 I stopped walking and looked down at my legs.  They seemed to be the same length but I had to be sure.  I stopped a young guy who was walking by and said "Hey, do I have one leg shorter than the other?"  He looked and said "No, but your hairstyle is really stupid."  Desperate to save face I said "Excuse me, for your information this happens to be the new 'in' style but clearly you are not up on the latest trends!'  And I turned around and limped off.

I now realized that my right foot was cold and wet so I scuttled into a shop and, standing casually beside a display of onions, I took off my boots and looked at them.  What I saw shook me to my very core and caused me to sway slightly, resulting in my bumping into a large pyramid of onions which collapsed and rolled all over the floor.  I thought I heard someone cry "Dear God!  The onions!" but I didn't care because I could see that the whole bottom had fallen off my right boot and I had been walking around in my socks.  The boots, having languished for years unnoticed and unworn at the back of the closet, were falling apart!  It was only a matter of time before they disintegrated completely leaving me standing there in my socks.

I had two choices - I could take a chance and limp home, hoping the other boot held, or I could abandon the boots right now and find a quick substitute.  I heard someone ask "Where did all these onions come from?" and I had a brilliant idea!  I left the boots on the onion stand and tied two large onions to my feet with a piece of string that was holding up a display of carrots.  Ignoring the cries of "Dear God!  The carrots!" as the carrot display collapsed and sent carrots rolling all over the floor behind the onions, I walked unsteadily out the door on my onion shoes and carefully made my way home, maiming myself several times as the onions proved to be a completely useless solution to walking on ice.

I heard on the news the next day that a near-sighted senior had been hospitalized for eating a fried boot.  "I thought that onion was a bit rubbery," he was quoted saying as he was helped into the ambulance.