Lucy and Ethel

As a child I loved the I Love Lucy sitcom. Lucy and Ethel were the epitome of true friendship. For all their squabbles and misadventures neither ever let the other down in the long run. I've been so fortunate in my life to have had such friends. I've often felt like I was living in a I Love Lucy show. I'm not sure how I got there but the circumstances always seem to balance on a fine line between tragic and comedic. Various friends and I have swapped back and forth the rolls of Lucy and Ethel.

One memorable incident I was Ethel to a friends Lucy. It was late one evening when the phone rang, much later than one should be calling. My daughter, a teenager at the time, was in her room safe at home. I hesitated to pick up the phone, until I saw it was a call from the "Smiths" home. My friend (I'll call her Alice) was working there. Alice's life was filled to capacity. She's a single mother like myself but her daughter was grown, and lived with her. Alice is a wonderful woman and great with kids. She was a foster parent for "Therapeutic" foster children. Her home was their last hope to live as close to a normal life as possible, if they failed there, their next place would be an institution. She worked very hard. Her only respite was her daughter who had been approved to care for them when Alice needed a break.

It was near Christmas and the child in Alice's home wanted a computer for Christmas. Alice heard about it day and night, but it just wasn't in the budget. One of Alice's other friends called to see if Alice would help out temporarily care taking her elderly mother in the evenings (when Alice's daughter could be with her charge). The friend needed a break and would be taking an art class at night for a couple of hours. It seemed the ideal way to find the extra money for the computer. The elderly mother had advanced alzheimer's. The family had warned Alice that their Mother was quite cranky. They didn't tell her that she smoked like a chimney.

I picked up the phone, Alice was frantic, her voice muffled. All I got was " Smiths", come quick. I called to my daughter that I was going out and would call her as soon as I got to the Smiths. The streets were slick with rain. It was raining buckets, so much for a white Christmas I thought. I finally arrived at the house Alice had called from. I got to the door and rang the bell. Alice yelled come in it's unlocked. That in its self was strange, the door should have been locked.

I stepped into the house and stood there shocked, then almost fell down laughing. The family had purchased an older hospital bed and moved it into the living room for their mother so that she could see out. Before me "Mrs. Smith" lay in her hospital bed sound asleep, but there was a definate downward slant to that bed. Underneath the bed lay Alice, trapped. Alice was alternately laughing and crying. "Ok Ethel" she said...get me out of here. I pulled myself together and tried to see how to get Alice out from under the bed.

While I was tugging and pulling and lifting the end of the mattress Alice filled me in on HOW she got there. Alice is allergic to smoke and Mrs. Smiths house reeked of smoke. I was trying hard NOT to breathe. Alice said her eyes were watering from coughing so she stepped out on the porch for a minute to get a breath of air while Mrs. Smith was sleeping (or so she thought). Mrs. Smith, it seems, decided to play with the crank at the end of the bed. When Alice came back in she hurridly got Mrs. Smith back in bed then set about tiding up the covers, then she noticed that the bed was slanting slightly. She tried the crank but it was stuck. Alice crawled under the bed to unstick the crank and it fell lose from the bed which then slanted further, trapping her under it. It was lucky that the phone was near the bed, she pulled it off the table by the cord and called me. With me holding the bed frame up, Alice managed to get the crank back into the slot and crawled out. After we checked on Mrs. Smith, who slept through the entire ordeal, cranked the bed up and made sure it was stable, we sat on the floor laughing, while Mrs. Smith snored peacefully.

Christmas morning under the tree at Alice's house was a box with a very good used computer in it. Alice resigned from elderly care taking, she mutter for months that they were harder than children. I still laugh today at our trying to get Alice out from under that bed.