On the bus today (sidenote: it's a bit shocking to me how many of my posts involve my bus ride. It's not actually that exciting, but it is the only time that I interact with people that I can blog about without fear of repercussion. Blogging about friends/coworkers usually leads to me pissing people off/offending them, even if I mean to be complimentary, because I am so incredibly talented at putting my foot in that there mouth. Even with my 8-month-preggo belly my foot still fits just fine.)
Anyway, on the bus today. A not-so-very-old man stood up to pull the cord and fell over. He had a cane, making if obvious that he's not-so-very mobile to begin with. I tried to help him up, but he looked at me like I was crazy and more likely to topple on top of him than succeed in helping, and he was probably correct. But my mind immediately flashed to "Where's A? Doh, at work. MMM..... what would A do? I have no idea. So now I'll stare straight ahead and stay out of the way." Any time there's a catastrophe of any proportion that involves someone's health, I immediately look for A. That is what having an ER doc at my side 70.23% of the time does to me: it makes me incapable of thinking how to resolve these situations on my own.
Not that, had I never met A, I would have figured out what to do in such situations. But it's an odd phenomenon to realize there are parts of my life in which I am completely helpless. I suspect that as I grow older there will be more and more of these. It's not so bad as it might have been 50 years ago; I know how to change my oil (though I don't enjoy it), and A is intimately familiar with the the washing machine. But there is one other area of my life where I am completely helpless: the grill. I really, truly, have very little idea how to grill when he's not around. Usually, if A is at work and there is grilling to be done, there is another male of equal-grill-temperament present. And so I carry on in clueless bliss, perpetuating stereotypes as I go.
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