I don’t consider myself a selfish person.  Sometimes life throws you a few curve balls just to let you know things aren’t always going to go your way.  Recently the wife broke her foot.  Very inconsiderate of her, I thought.  Because of her accident our caching has been put on hold.  After a few doctor visits she now walks with a large black boot and crutches.  Without the boot I had to jump up every time she needed anything.  With the boot she was much more mobile.  As much as she complained about the boot being heavy and bulky, I was very relieved to see her getting around on her own.

I was on the internet perusing nearby geocaches. I spotted one not too far away that had yet to be found.  The excitement of a possible FTF got the best of me.  I looked over at the wife comfortably sitting on the couch under her blanket drinking her morning coffee.  I hesitated a few minutes before I decided to give it a go.  The thrill of a FTF got the best of me.

Me:  “How would you like to get out of the house?  There’s a chance for a FTF not too far away.”

The look she gave me made me take a step back.  You would think I had asked her to give up a kidney. 

Wife:  “You’re not serious?”

Me:  “Why not?  You’re getting around much better and I’ll be right there to help you.”

Wife:  “My foot is broken.”

Leave it to her to point out the obvious.  It took some doing but I was finally able to convince her to try.  It took her forever to get into the car.  I think she was going slow just to irritate me.  When we arrived at the Nature Center I thought she would refuse to get out of the car and ruin everything.   To get to the cache was going to be a .39 mile walk .  It was early March and even though the snow had melted in my yard there was ice on the trails in the woods.  We hadn’t made it very far before she fell the first time.  I would have thought with all the practice she had walking with the crutches she should be more stable.  I picked her up and of course she fell repeatedly on the way to the cache.  Again, I think she was going slow just to irritate me.  I would not put it past her to teach me a lesson by flopping in the mud like a fish out of water.

I’m reminded of the story of Hannibal crossing the Alps with his elephants.  Apparently along the way some of the animals mis-stepped and fell to their doom down the mountain.  I have to believe after several of these accidents he was second-guessing his wisdom in insisting on bringing the pachyderms on the trip.  I think I was sharing his thoughts as I watched the wife land in the mud for the umpteenth time.

Wife:  “I thought you said you were going to help me?  You‘re too far away from me.”

Me:  “That’s because every time I get close you whack me with your crutch.”

Wife:  “Well, excuse me for slipping on the ice.  Remember this was your dumb idea.”

Well, after what seemed to take forever we reached the cache.  By some miracle we were FTF.  I quickly signed the log and practically carried the wife back to the car.  On the way home I had to listen to her go on about all the mud covering her and that I had not been much help to her at all.  I have to admit she was taking quite a bit of the Nature Center home with her.  After we got home I helped her get cleaned up and into clean clothes.  An hour later after she had settled onto the couch with a warm blanket covering her and everything back to normal she said…

Wife:  “It was nice to get out.  Wasn’t that fun?”

By nanncyan

The wife and I have been geocaching about three years now.  We enjoy the exercise and great scenery.  We are surprised by the parks that we never knew exsisted right in our own back yard.  We live in Comstock Park Michigan.  We are fortunate to have thousands of caches within a short drive.  We are recently retired and plan to cache around the country.  Who knows maybe we will be in Washington next July for GW VIII!  Our goal is to keep geocaching fun.  I hope our stories relate that to others.

Marvin Altena