Mom versus the wheelchair

For two years, Mother refused to use a walker or wheelchair, but she could barely walk. She wore an alert button to summon help when she fell, but that didn't stop her from getting concussions and injuring her knee.

"Give me one good excuse why you won't get a wheelchair." I said.

"People will think I'm old," the eighty three year old said.

"I'll get you a helmet with a sweatshirt that says "Test Driver," I said.

"People will feel sorry for me," she said. 

"No they won't. They'll get mad you're blocking their way with the chair."

"I don't want people to get mad at me," she said.

"Too late. Each time you fall and get hurt, you block hallways and grocery aisles until the ambulance arrives."

"I heard someone got electrocuted in an electric wheel chair," she said.

"I heard anacondas dwell in the plumbing of Rochester Hills," I said, "but I still go barefoot in the bathroom. In the dark." 

"But you screamed like an idiot when you stepped on my sponge roller the other night. Take no chance, have no fear, that's my motto," Mom said.  

The phone rang.

My younger sister, calling from California.

Mom turned on the speaker phone. She said she had good news.

"Oh!" Mother said, "did the doctors find out what's wrong with your knees so you can go back to work?"

"No! I can shop, cook, clean, my knees stopped hurting, I've stopped falling, and I don't need surgery. All because I bought a wheelchair," my sister said.

"But you're so young!" Mother said.

"I looked older hobbling and falling down every day," Sis said.

Mother finally went to an orthopedic specialist to see what she needed.