Conversation with My Wife (144)

Those Herlocker women!

My ex-wife, Linda, and her significant other, Carol, are vacationing in Italy, dining and hitting tourist spots and out-of-the-way places. Much of it on foot, which would be fine, except Linda managed to break her ankle a few weeks before they left. So she’s tripping around the Boot in a boot.

This is the kind of pretty little multi-level village they are walking around. Hurts just looking at it, yes? (Photo ©2019 by Carol Pierpont.)

ME: Have you seen their photos of some of these villages? They’re all slopes and staircases! I can’t imagine how Linda is holding up¹.

DEB: It’s a thing with Herlocker women, honey. We break a foot, we break an ankle, whatever, we keep going rather than disappoint our family.

The legend and example of my mother: back in 1985 she, my sister, and I went to the UK on a family vacation. While sightseeing in London on a “hop on/hop off” bus, my mother misjudged the “hop off” part and messed up her foot. On returning to the States, x-rays determines she has broken it. During the vacation, walking around London? “It’s a little sore. Maybe I can put some ice on it when we get back to the hotel.”

My sister and my mother, at a picnic in Hyde Park, 1985. Note that London either didn’t have anything against carrying open bottles of booze in public parks, or we just weren’t good at reading signs. Photo by author.

DEB: Just so you know, Jackster, if that ever happens to me, we are renting a wheelchair!

So she says. And yet, I suspect, if we have an expectant grand-niece in tow, and she gives Deb the “PLEEEEEASE Aunt Debbie?!” eye-treatment, the ghost of her mother-in-law will manifest.

Photo by Muhammadtaha Ibrahim on Unsplash — NOT one of our nieces or grand-nieces, because the last thing I need is a pissed-off teenager coming after me in 3–10 years when she gets on social media, but this is just the sort of look that will have Aunt Debbie walking on a broken foot.

AUNT DEB: It’s a long way, sweetie, want to take a cab?… Okay, you’re right, the shop windows are very pretty, we can walk and look at them.

¹Recently posted by Linda: her activity app with the log for the day and disappointment that she didn’t break 10,000 steps. Because 9,799 steps, hobbled in a boot, shows she’s just being leisurely. 🙄 Nope, not competitive, my ex, not at all. Love her dearly, and, more importantly, she’s Carol’s problem now! 😁

Copyright ©2019 by Jack Herlocker. All rights reserved, including the right to be a Herlocker man and rent the damn wheelchair!

My parents, on a different family vacation to a non-European location that still had a castle. Notice my father in a — yes, folks! — wheelchair. Photo by author.

Conversations with My Wife (collection)