Gather round, kids

Time for a funny story.

A member of our choir had knee surgery earlier this week. Her life is a very sad story, but for the purposes of this post, suffice it to say that she has no family around to help her. She is staying at a friend's house. But the friend is out of town. So, she's 65 years old, all by herself, and recovering from a torn meniscus. Mum, a veteran of knee surgery, brought her supper today. But not before she had a very peculiar adventure.

Mrs. B is a good friend of ours and the injured lady's. She gave Mum directions to the house. They were, "Turn left onto the street that you turn on to get to my house, but she is in the second house on the right. There is a big, white car in the driveway."

So, Mum did just that. She turned left and looked at the second house on the right. It existed, but there was no car. She looked at the second house on the left. It also existed. And it had a car in the driveway. A gold one. Then she began to worry that maybe she had misunderstood Mrs. B. Maybe it was the house on the left. Then she got scared. She couldn't remember for sure what Mrs. B had said! While kicking herself for not writing it down, she proceeded to the left side of the street.

Mrs. B had told Mum that the lady would be leaving the front door unlocked for her. That way she wouldn't have to get up and hobble over to let her in. Mum, even with her uncertainty, didn't want to run the risk of making the invalid walk. So she opened the door cautiously and tip-toed in. She called out, "Ruth?" No answer, but she saw a young girl at the other end of the house. This couldn't possibly be it. She ran back out, shut the door, and then knocked on it. The little girl came to the door. She was about 10 years old and while she didn't know anyone named Ruth, she was kind enough to fetch her mom. My mum, in her extreme embarrassment, explained to that mom that she was looking for an old lady named Ruth who had just had knee surgery. She was trying to bring her supper, she told the stranger. The lady was very sympathetic and said that it probably was the house without the car. Mum thanked her and got away as fast as she possibly could. Then she got back in the car and did a couple laps around the block.

For anyone who knows my mom, you can probably picture fairly well the state she was in. A bit of panic would have set in by now and that makes her (like most people) less rational. She turned onto another street. There, on that street, there existed a second house on the right with a white car in the driveway. Could it be possible that Mrs. B had gotten the streets mixed up? Not likely. She lived in the neighborhood and had been to the elusive house just that morning. Thankfully, Mum didn't adventure into that house, but she went back to the original street and bravely approached the second house on the right. The one with no car in front. Not wanting to risk another indelicate entrance, she tapped on the door before she opened it and peeked in. To her utter relief, she heard Ruth's greeting. Whew! She got her dinner delivered and was back, safe, in the car headed home.

And then Mum, because she is my mum, started wondering, "Maybe there was a car in the driveway and I was just hallucinating."

hehehehe

Poor Mum.