My Alexa is going deaf. So how will I call 911 when I’ve fallen and can’t get up?

I might have to give in and get a…dreaded….walker.

I once thought if I fell and couldn’t get up I could just yell at Alexa to call 911.   But these days I have to pick her up and yell at her to get her to hear me.  

I’ve got an older model, the Echo Tap, which is battery powered and portable.  For some incomprehensible reason Amazon stopped making them and I got a refurbished model off of Woot (which is now owned by Amazon). 

Although she can’t hear me, somehow she always hears the word “Alexa” whenever someone refers to her on TV.  She perks up and asks me:  “what can I do for you?” or just plays Country Roads by John Denver which seems to be her favorite if not mine.   

The solution of course is not to fall. 

 This crises has arisen as I contemplate giving in and getting a…dreaded….walker.   I’ve started Googling walkers and looking them up on Amazon.   I also watch other old people push their walkers along and snap into denial.   

“Oh, no, that’s not me.”

  I’m wrong.   It is me.

 Between my arthritis and COPD I’m a poster girl for walkers.  I can walk so much better in the supermarket pushing a cart.  

Part of the problem is the way the goddamned things look.   Why can’t someone design a trendy, cool-looking walker?   Why do you have to hunch over them like a crab?    The hunching alone is terrible for the back.  I’ve seen upright walkers and I’ll probably get one of them, but they’re not exactly trendy looking. 

I Googled walkers to see if I could find a cool one, and what did I find:  The Walking Dead.  The zombies on that show are called Walkers.    In Game of Thrones the zombies are called White Walkers.   The association is obvious, if macabre.  Old people leaning on walkers creep slowly, like zombies.     Old people using walkers trigger fears of aging and death.   Old people = zombies who use walkers.

I actually do own a cool mobility aid.  A cane chair   It’s a real chair with a back.  It only weighs 2.2 pounds and folds into a cane that doesn’t look like a cane.   It is actually cool looking.  My friend Julie wanted to buy one and guess what?   They’re now unavailable.   Why am I not surprised?   The only inexpensive, lightweight, cool-looking mobility aid I know of has been discontinued. Take a look.

I wish I was an inventor.   I’d invent a cool walker and a cool mobility scooter and go on Shark Tank.  One of the sharks has got to have a parent whom they worry will fall, and who hates walkers    I’ve never seen an old person on that show although there are plenty of older inventors.   

What is wrong with you Boomers?   I know you are getting up in years and are the original inventors of cool.  And technology.  Get off your butts and insist on better products for the mobility impaired among us.  Or create them.   I’ll be your first customer. 

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