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One icy day I needed to make a subway trip. My grandson Sam had been sick and wasn't yet ready to go back to nursery school, so I was going to entertain him at home.
Because I'm afraid of falling on the ice, last year I bought by mail order a pair of ice cleats that slip on over your boots or shoes. This seemed to be the perfect day to wear them. I would need them particularly to walk from our house to the subway, I reasoned, and then again from the bus stop near Sam's house through the alleyway to their house. The alleyway is never shoveled or cleared of ice and snow, and I could imagine how treacherous it would be. Good thing I had my cleats.
Unfortunately, the mail order company had been less than forthright in setting out the sizes for their over-the-shoe cleats, and I had bought a Medium instead of a Large. They fit on my shoes, indeed, but barely, and only after much tugging and much straining of arthritic thumbs. It's a process you don't want to undertake often, or in public, or without a solid chair to sit on.
Consequently, I decided to put the cleats on at home and wear them until I reached Sam's house.
I left the house. The sidewalk to the subway was actually clear, so in order not to waste the magic holding power of the cleats, I walked in the street, near the curb, where ice and snow were still packed. And as I walked I realized that I was going to be wearing those cleats on my boots when I was in the subway station. Uh-oh, I thought, I'd better be careful.
So here I am in the station. I go down the steps very carefully, looking like a little old lady twice my age, clinging to the handrail with every step. But I make it. Pay my fare. And descend the next set of steps to the westbound platform. I need to be at the front end of the train, so I walk the entire length of the platform. "Don't hurry!" I tell myself (against all my natural impulses). I don't hurry. I place each foot very carefully and I make my way ("click, click, click, click") to the front end of the westbound platform. As I wait for the train, I stand near the wall and congratulate myself on how careful I have been.
The train roars in to the station from the tunnel and gradually slows to a stop. I'm perfectly placed, with a door straight ahead. As I move forward, my cleats belatedly recognize that there's no traction on this smooth tile floor, and my feet slip out from under me in a nano-second. Suddenly I am flat on my back in front of the subway door.
Because it's winter and it's cold, I am wearing my puffy watermelon pink winter jacket and my funky brown sheepskin pillbox hat with the earflaps and the trailing leather streamers. The coat is thick and the hat is even thicker. Thus, even though I slam flat onto my back and the back of my head, I'm not hurt.
A passenger leaving the train (she didn't expect to find me lying in her path on the platform) helps me up. I want to get up quickly and rush on to the train, but the conductor, even though he has seen the whole thing, rings the warning chimes and the door closes right in my face. I found this more upsetting than the actual fall.
Left alone sitting on the platform, my first action is to whip off the cleats (they're a snap to take off; it's only putting them ON that's difficult).
The next train arrives within a minute, so I reach the Old Mill station just in time to catch the 66A bus to Sam's house. I didn't lose any time by missing that train.
At the end of the bus ride, I am faced with walking the icy alleyway to Sam's house without my cleats. I am very cautious. See the Nana learn another lesson: she's learning to move slowly when circumstances demand it.
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