LADDER

Every family has one--the person who will not return borrowed items--and I have my sister-in-law. I must call to remind her about borrowed items and then I must fetch the items she borrowed.

She borrowed my ladder and kept it for ten years! This ladder was given to me as a birthday present from my brother Norman and he’d written “Happy Birthday, Sue” under the shelf. (I put practical things on my birthday wish-list!) My ceilings are 12 feet high and although I have a step-stool in each of the kitchen, library and bedroom to be able to reach items, sometimes I need a ladder. Each time I needed the ladder in the ten-year span, instead of going to my sister-in-law to retrieve it, I would call on my taller husband to reach things for me. One day Gerald wasn’t home and I needed the ladder. I called my sister-in-law to tell her I was coming to get my ladder. She told me she didn’t have my ladder. I asked her what she had done with it and she said she’d never had it but that she had one of her own I could “borrow”. I asked if it were a 6-feet wooden ladder and she said that it was. I told her that I was coming to look at it. When I went there, we went to the garage and I showed her the inscription on the ladder and she was, of course, embarrassed and said that she’d never noticed the writing. She asked me how long she’d had it and I said, “Ten years.” She asked, “If you haven’t needed it in ten years, why do you need it now?”