One step at a time

Living in the condo was a pain in the ass as you always have close neighbors that are either nosey or want to tell you what to do. The flip side to it was it was nicer than the old house.

I'm not sure it was easy on Bertha because the bedrooms were on the second floor and she was getting up there in years. By this time I was in my early high school years and trying to enjoy what would probably be one of my last summers before I started working.

Early one summer morning at around 5 am I was laying in bed when the craziest thing interrupted my slumber. Mom had gotten up to get ready for work and was in the shower when Bertha decided she had to go to the bathroom. Bertha was one of those like most elderly people that when it was time to go, it was time to go.

My mom never made a habit of locking the bathroom door but for whatever reason on this particular morning she had. Which apparently was very distressing to Bertha. Her only course of action was to head for the 1/2 bath on the first floor.

In the condo going from the second to first floors the setup was as follows. Come out of the front bedroom turn left and go down 3-4 stairs to a landing. At the landing you turn left to go down the main staircase to another landing about 3 foot by 3 foot. Directly in front of the last stair was the hall closet and turning left and one more stair brought you into the livingroom. The was no easy journey for an old woman who "Has to go"

Bertha got to the first stair and decided that she was probably in a bit of trouble because she really had to go badly. The way to make sure she didn't have an accident was to bend down and grab the bottom back of her night gown, pull it between her legs and hold it in her words "To prevent herself from spilling anything"

As she proceeded down the first set of stairs and navigated her turn she did better than anyone could have hoped under the circumstance. What happened next was something that to this day I can remember being awaken from a dead sound sleep.

As Bertha hit the approx 5th step form the bottom she got hung up in the night gown she was carefully negotiating to prevent any mess from happening. Urban legend has stated it was at this point she moved from an elderly woman to "Evil Knievel" status. Bertha launched from about the 5th stair head first into the closet door on the bottom landing and plopped right down on her ass!!

The story from my perspective as ...


ZZZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
Boom Boom Boom ..... Dead Silence ....
Then a faint voice- Joan! Joan! Joan! I fell down the stairs.

I remember going form dead sleep to running about 1.2 of a second and mom the same form the shower. As I came around the corner of the top landing there was poor Bertha sitting on her ass looking up at us ...

Mom and I quickly made sure she was ok but being old and heavy getting her up was lifting dead weight. As we got her off the landing the sudden stench hit us that Bertha attempting to spare us spillage had in fact dirtied the entire landing...

As though not to miss a beat my mother looked at me and said... I gotta go to work you clean it..and back to her shower she went..

Bertha was no worse for wear in her attempt to break the record of oldest living human to fly but to this day I'll never forget those words "I gotta go to work"

It would be several years before I'd get to delegate things to my own child that I didn't want to do ....