Naked Mom 2 1/2

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 14/05/2015 (4085 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

I really didn’t want to share this story with you today, but I will anyway, because my mother told me I had to do it.

I received this royal command recently when I called my 84-year-old mom, who lives alone in a condo by the ocean on Vancouver Island, to wish her a happy Mother’s Day.

“I had another adventure in the shower,” is how Mom greeted me. “You should write about it and send it to me, then I can cut it out and stick it on the fridge beside the last column.”

She was referring to a column I wrote last year wherein — at her urging — I described how she’d hobbled into the bathroom to take her morning shower, which involves sitting on one of those small plastic shower chairs. On the morning in question, however, the chair shattered under her weight and — WHOOPS! — Mom toppled over and became stuck on the floor of her tiny shower, wedged in so tightly she was unable to move her legs, let alone stand up.

Undaunted, she managed to reach up and turn off the water, then cleverly used a long-handled back brush to push open the shower door and tip over her walker, on which she always rests her mobile phone.

Using the brush, she was able to pull the phone into the shower, which enabled her to call 911 and politely explain her unusual predicament to the dispatcher.

So there was my beloved, mostly deaf mom, in her birthday suit, cold and wet, trapped on the floor of her shower, phone in one hand, the other wielding the long-handled brush to pull down a towel, when a team of heroic paramedics and police officers burst into her bathroom.

In the sort of dramatic rescue you never see on TV anymore, they removed the shower door, then four burly guys draped my mom in a towel and carefully hoisted her up off the floor and freed her from the confines of her watery jail cell.

“There I was,” my mom giggled at the time, “old, fat, naked, stuck on the floor of the shower and surrounded by all these gorgeous young policemen and handsome paramedics.”

Which is where we ended the story in last year’s column. By way of update, a few days later, Mom made a trip to the hospital to get checked out, which is where, by sheer accident, she stumbled on the same paramedics who had ridden to her rescue.

“Hello, Mrs. Speirs,” they chirped politely. “You look a lot better today.”

What with being a relentlessly upbeat person who finds joy in any situation, my mom just laughed and replied: “I’m surprised that you recognized me with my clothes on.”

Which somehow brings us to Mom’s latest adventure, which — and you will be surprised to hear this — involves yet another impromptu community meeting in her bathroom.

What you need to know here is that, after Mom’s first rescue, my brother and my sister and I agreed Mom shouldn’t stay on her own any longer unless she was equipped with one of those wearable medical-alert alarms that allow you, at the press of a button, to summon help whenever you need it.

So Mom had her fancy alarm draped around her neck the other morning when she climbed in the shower to start another lovely morning on the West Coast. As she enjoyed a leisurely scrub, she thought she heard the phone ringing, but decided to ignore it, because, even with her walker, she moves slower than airport luggage. Eventually, she shuffled out of the shower and parked herself in a chair in front of the bathroom mirror to brush her hair. As she gazed at her reflection, she noticed the bathroom door slowly creaking open and two handsome heads, sporting looks of grave concern, peaking through the opening.

“HELLO!” my startled mom squealed to the two strange heads in the mirror. “What are you doing in my bathroom?”

The heads, which were attached to the fit bodies of two local paramedics, quickly explained they were responding to an alarm from my mom’s emergency-alert necklace, which, as you have already figured out, had been accidentally activated while she was in the shower.

After assuring themselves Mom was OK, the paramedics — “This sort of thing happens all the time, ma’am” — went on their way. Which was precisely when my older brother, who’d been in the middle of an important business meeting when he was informed my mom’s alarm had been activated and she wasn’t answering her phone, charged into Mom’s apartment.

My brother was relieved Mom was OK, but maybe a bit miffed about the, um, brouhaha. I don’t think he was all that amused when Mom casually observed: “You know, dear, there aren’t many paramedics who haven’t seen me naked.”

Which probably explains why he so quickly agreed when I suggested what I believe would be the perfect Mother’s Day gift for next year. I’m thinking a bathtub would make a lot of sense.

doug.speirs@freepress.mb.ca