When walking back from the stop sign, I joined neighbor Julie and her dogs on the road at Shawn and Bob’s house. Julie was just beginning her walk, and she chatted with Shawn and Bob from the street. When Julie continued her walk, Shawn invited me to the porch for a cup of coffee. We used to do that from time to time, but we’ve all been busy this year. Bob went inside to make my coffee, as Shawn invited me to sit in his rocking chair. He came back and sat in the straight chair.
We talked a mile a minute, catching up with each other’s news. I have a tendency to overstay my welcome, so I told myself to sip the coffee and leave when the cup was empty. It was hard for me to do. I love to talk and listen!
I announced my intention to leave, rocked the chair forward, and failed to get up. To avoid being stuck like that, I get up and down from a chair ten times every morning. I tried a second time, pushing against the armrests. No go!
Bob said, “Count to three and do it again.”
I obeyed and counted to three. I did get up, noticing at the same time that Bob’s hand had pushed the chair forward when I reached three. Cool trick, Bob! Actually, it was a very kind thing to do, saving me from total embarrassment. Can you imagine thoroughly enjoying porch hospitality and then physically being unable to leave?? Aarrgghh!
Thank you, Bob.
Mehrling Muse 
Sounds like you have some wonderfully understanding friends and neighbors. It’s great when we can feel at ease with those around us and know that we are being accepted for what we are.
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I never get tired of telling you how special your neighbors are Anne.
That kind of reminds me of the couple on the Carol Burnet Show – Carol Burnett and Harvey Korman. When she came to the porch, he would “start” her rocking chair for her. 🙂
Many years ago, my mom was sitting in an easy chair in the den. We always watched TV together, not so much during the workweek, as we would tape shows/movies and then watch them on weekend/holidays, etc. She sat in this chair for decades, then this one night we were done with the shows and ready to go to bed and she couldn’t rise out of the chair. It was about 11:00 p.m. and she was clearly worried. My mom was short, just 5′ 2″ tall, to my 5′ 9″ tall, so I said “well I’ll pull you up to your feet, take both my hands.” She had a death grip on me and said “no, I’ll give you a hernia, or you’ll hurt your arms pulling me up. She weighed about 135 pounds maybe at the time. She sat there for hours, getting more worried about how to get up … we might have called Marge next door if it wasn’t so late. It was if she lost her “oomph” to push up. I got the idea to get a lot of pillows and put them under her bum and have her hang onto my neck … we got her out of the chair finally, she was shaking like a leaf and she refused to get back into it ever again. It pretty much spelled the end of watching TV in that room. I offered to get her a straight-back chair with arm rests … nope. I got a computer screen and had an old VCR that had lost its ability to record audio, but it worked for playback, so from then on, I taped shows/movies, then we watched TV in the kitchen and/or I dragged the contraption (which I put onto a cart) into her bedroom and we watched there.
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You were so good to your mother. You found a way to watch things with her! That was brilliant, the way you helped her out of the chair.
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You have great neighbors! That sort of thing does happen.
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I’m glad you had a nice visit. It is so frustrating when the body won’t do what the brain tells it to do.
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I try to outsmart my body, but it doesn’t always work.
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And you said “Aarrggg” on National Pirates Day!!
Seriously, glad you were saved from embarrassment ☺️
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