An elderly man who was having trouble getting around his home was sitting on the couch with his wife. Not an unusual occurrence in this town. Many elderly people reside here because of the calm, laid back country life that goes on in this town. The man saw an ad on his old black and white television for a new walking stick. The man desperately needed a new one. His last one was worn out to the point it almost looked like a twig, rather than a stick. His wife looked at him and exclaimed, “My, look at how cheap they are selling that walking stick for. They might as well just give the darn thing away.” He grumbled a little but finally agreed with his wife. Then he stumbled over to his desk and grabbed a piece of paper and an ink pen from the bottom drawer and hastily wrote down the number for the company that was selling the walking stick.

     After nearly an hour of talking about it, they both decided that they needed to call the company with the walking stick. The man was having trouble getting up and down. It was quite obvious to his wife that the eighty or more years of this man’s life was really taking a toll on his body. She told him to sit down and she would bring the phone to him. She got up off of the couch and quickly snatched the phone off of its receiver and presented it to her husband. When she went to give him the phone, he was not in his seat on the couch. “Where did that man get off to this time?” she wondered aloud. Moments later he staggered back into the living room carrying a small brown wallet in his hand. When his wife asked him what he had gone to get his wallet for, he had explained to her, “If the man on the other end of the phone needs my name, date of birth, or my address. Could you please hand me my reading glasses? I left them on the table in the kitchen when we had breakfast.” His wife left to go and get his glasses for him and came back a moment later with them. They were nothing special. They were old and the rust had slightly left its mark on them. They were also scratched in several places.

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