I got a call from my mother-in-law during lunchtime asking if I had any crutches in my garage. One of her brothers hurt his ankle and she’s trying to help him out. Mom says, “with all the broken bones we’ve had in this family, there’s got to be a few pairs of crutches in someone’s garage!”
After I got off the phone with her, I reflected on this and saw some humor there. When people get off crutches, do they really think, “I’m probably going to fall down the stairs in the next three months so I better hang on to these”? Or, “my other kid is going to sprain his ankle so I ought to keep these.”
Every time I’ve been on crutches, I’ve wanted to get off them as fast as possible and find the nearest dumpster to throw them into. Just in thinking about the injuries in our immediate family in the last twenty years, we’ve had a high ankle sprain, a ruptured achilles tendon, five broken arms, a couple of concussions, and a few other injuries that required medical attention. My guess is that this is probably a higher than average frequency of injury, and yet, not once did we think, “we better hold on to those crutches — we’re going to need them again.” Think about it — the odds of needing them again in the next six to twelve months are darn near astronomical!
Half Baked 