I called Mom on Monday, realizing that I had not spoken to her in a while. She informed me that she had fallen down the stairs on Friday night. She reassured me that she had not actually broken anything, and that she had also been (mostly) able to walk as of Sunday — MOSTLY. Fantastic. — when she’d finally decided to go to a clinic and get checked out.

“They put a thing,” she said sadly. “What is the word? It is around my legs.”

I tried to explain the word ‘brace,’ but she seemed to be getting it confused with her actual braces — the metal ones on her teeth — and the conversation went downhill from there. In between recriminations about why she didn’t immediately seek medical help, and generalized swearing, it all got a bit excited.