Down the Dark Alley

Sister St. Aloysius will have to look for new opportunities to suffer, as her arm is on the mend. A few days ago her doctor changed her big clunky all the way around the elbow cast to a streamlined light weight job that only goes from her hand to her elbow. What a shame, as that happened the day before Lent began and not being able to straighten her arm was driving her around the bend.

A shame for me as well, since I loved taking her on alley walks while she had that big clunker on.

I like to walk through alleys. I think I have always liked to walk through alleys.

To begin with you get to see the backside of everyone's life. The tidy garage, the hillbilly garage, the beautiful yard, the falling down back fence, the grill, the Big Wheels, the cars on blocks, all a snapshot of life as we know it.

Back there we get an insight into who is really persnickety, who is a big slob and who is just a person with not enough time to take care of every detail of a hunk of property back in the corners no one else sees.

No one but me and Sister St. Aloysius, the alley walkers.

Here in the city, I especially like walking through the alley because it's much more quiet than trudging up the sidewalk with all the cars zooming by. I will admit that at certain times of day the cars zoom through the alley, too, trying to bypass traffic.

But I am such a learned alley walker, I know where to walk in the alley so that I don't get run over. You walk in the middle of the alley in the middle of the alley and the far sides of the alley when you are on either end of it. That way when someone comes zooming into the alley they don't hit you, but in the middle there they can see you and slow down. I am actually a bit paranoid about being run over since my mother's amazing colossal accident a few years back. Did I ever tell you about that? She came out relatively unscathed, but the car was totaled. Remind me to tell you that story sometime. You should see me scooting around parking lots trying to avoid being behind anyone with their brake lights on. On lookers must wonder if someone is secretly giving me electric shocks from afar.

I have been cautioned numerous times, that it is dangerous for me to walk in the alley, as I also do it at night. "Pish posh," I say. It's not as though I'm out there at 3 AM.

The best part about the giant heavy cast was that I could just tell everyone not to worry about the alley walking, because if anything happened, Sister St. Aloysius could just clunk robbers in the head with it and we would run away.

Silly.

So I've given up alleys (among other things) for Lent.

By the time Lent is over, and our backyards of the soul have been all straightened up, Sister St. Aloysius' arm will be all better and she will be able to do her kung -fu jujitzu on any potential attackers once more.